Please visit the Medieval Studies event page for further information.
This symposium will explore the complex institutional, cultural, and religious relationships tying the societies of sub-Saharan Africa to one another and to the "medieval" worlds of the Mediterranean and Red Sea basins. From the formation of great trading cities like Timbuktu, to the establishment of Islamic religious communities across the breadth of Africa, to the creation of a rich, synthetic devotional and literary culture, these relationships represent an important test case for what Susan Nokes and Geraldine Heng have described as the "global Middle Ages". Speakers from a variety of disciplinary and regional backgrounds will discuss the contours of the trans-Saharan region and its pivotal cultural, religious, and economic role, and explore the value of "Trans-Saharan Studies" as a rubric for understanding the broader African ecumene in the pre-colonial past.
Medieval/Africa is made possible through the generous support of Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, the Committee on African Studies, the Mahindra Humanities Center, the Harvard Divinity School, and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Conference program
Thursday, 5 February
Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, 5:00 pm
Welcoming remarks:
Nicholas Watson, Chair, Harvard University Committee on Medieval Studies
Lawrence Bobo, Chair, Harvard Department of African and African American Studies
Introduction:
Caroline Elkins, Director of the Harvard Center for African Studies
Keynote address:
Timbuktu: The World, the Text, and the Manuscript
Shamil Jeppie (University of Cape Town), Director of the Timbouctou Manuscripts Project and the Institute for Humanities in Africa
Reception to follow in the Braun Room of Andover Hall
Friday, 6 February
CGIS S010 (the Tsai Auditorium), 1730 Cambridge Street
Session 1 (0900-1030): Modern Africa and its Medieval Legacy.
Chair: Sean Gilsdorf (Committees on Medieval Studies and History and Literature)
Murray Last (University of London), The Privatisation of the Islamic “State” in Hausaland Since c. 1500 AD
Eric Ross (Al Akhawayn University, Morocco), Toponymic References to the Muslim Heartlands in Contemporary Senegambia
Coffee break (1030-1045)
Session 2 (1045-1245): Timbuktu, Islam, and African Urbanism
Chair: Emmanuel Akyeampong (Departments of History and African and African American Studies)
Corisande Fenwick (Leicester University), Tales of the City: Archaeology, Urbanisation, and the Muslim Conquest of North Africa
Susan McIntosh (Rice University), Before Timbuktu: Towns and Trade along the Middle Niger, 100 BCE—1200 CE
Adria LaViolette (University of Virginia), Islamic Practice and Dynamic Urban Landscapes on the Swahili Coast (Eleventh-Sixteenth Centuries)
Lunch break (1245-1400)
Session 3 (1400-1600): Political, Religious, and Cultural Exchange in the Trans-Saharan World
Chair: Ousmane Kane (Harvard Divinity School)
Suzanne Blier (Harvard University), Worlds in a Vessel: A Richard II Ewer from Kumasi and the Legacy of English-Gold Coast Engagement
Chouki El Hamel (Arizona State University), Wuld Kirinfil the "Slave" Rebel and Trans-Saharan Geo-Politics
Rudolph Ware (University of Michigan), The Dawn of the West African Clerisy: Kabara, Jagha, and the People of the West, 1000—1500 CE
Coffee break (1600-1615)
Session 4 (1615-1730): Medieval Africa? Remarks and Reactions
Chair: Nicholas Watson (Department of English and Committee on Medieval Studies)
Michael Brett (University of London/SOAS)
Carol Symes (University of Illinois)
LOCATION:CGIS STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20150205T220000Z DTEND:20150206T223000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR