Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past
Essays in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
Published on 26. July 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
538 pages
978-90-04-34883-7 (ISBN)
Description
Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past offers a comprehensive assessment of new directions in the historiography of West Africa. With twenty-four chapters by leading researchers in the study of West African history and cultures, the volume examines the main trends in multiple fields including the critical interpretation of Arabic sources; new archaeological surveys of trans-Saharan trade; the discovery of sources in Latin America relating to pan-Atlantic histories; and the continuing analysis of oral histories. The volume is dedicated to Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, whose work inspired the intellectual reorientations discussed in its chapters and stands as the clearest formulation of the book's central focus on the relationship between political conjunctures and the production of sources.
Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, Francois-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.
Contributors are: Benjamin Acloque, Karin Barber, Seydou Camara, Mamadou Diawara, Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, Francois-Xavier Fauvelle, Nikolas Gestrich, Toby Green, Bruce Hall, Jan Jansen, Shamil Jeppie, Daouda Keita, Murray Last, Robin Law, Camille Lefebvre, Paul Lovejoy, Ghislaine Lydon, Carlos Magnavita, Sonja Magnavita, Kevin MacDonald, Thomas McCaskie, Ann McDougall, Daniela Moreau, Mauro Nobili, Insa Nolte, Abel-Wedoud Ould-Cheikh, Benedetta Rossi, Charles Stewart.
Reviews / Votes
[...] The editors have done a very good job of bringing together a wide range of scholars to engage with Moraes Farias' ideas and give them new life. This book is a useful and welcome contribution that overcomes traditional disciplinary divides and makes for a very fitting tribute to this greatscholar and his work.[...]
Sirio Canos-Donnay, Institute of Heritage Sciencies, Spanish National Research Council, in African Archaeology Review (2020) 37:315-316
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
726 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-34883-7 (9789004348837)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Toby Green is Senior Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture at King's College London. He is the author of The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Cambridge, 2012).
Benedetta Rossi is Reader in African Studies at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000 (Cambridge 2015).
Benedetta Rossi is Reader in African Studies at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000 (Cambridge 2015).
Content
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Part 1: Archaeology and Material Landscapes
1 All that Glitters is not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa
?Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita
2 African Archaeology and the 'Chalk Line Effect': A Consideration of Mali City and Sigilmasa
?Francois-Xavier Fauvelle
3 The 'Pays Do' and the Origins of the Empire of Mali
?Kevin C. MacDonald, Nikolas Gestrich, Seydou Camara, Daouda Keita
Part 2: Imagined Landscapes and Moral Topographies
4 Imitation and Creativity in the Establishment of Islam in Oyo
?Insa Nolte
5 Fante 'Origins': The Problematic Evidence of 'Tradition'
?Robin Law
6 The Unknowns of the Modern Era in the Greater Western Sahara: Reassessing the Territorial Location of the Wlad Dlaym (15th-17th Centuries)
?Benjamin Acloque
7 The Almoravids and As?arism: Regarding the Work of al-Muradi al-?a?rami
?Abdel Wedoud Ould-Cheikh
Part 3: Contextualising Writing and Written Sources
8 Inscribing the Now and the Hereafter: First Writings in Early African History
?Ghislaine Lydon
9 New Reinventions of the Sahel: Reflections on the Ta?ri? Genre in the Timbuktu Historiographical Production, Seventeenth to Twentieth Centuries
?Mauro Nobili
10 Calibrating the Scholarship of Timbuktu
?Charles C. Stewart
11 Rethinking the Place of Timbuktu in the Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa
?Bruce S. Hall
12 Two Examples of Sahelian Book Collectors Over Two Centuries
?Shamil Jeppie
Part 4: Contextualising Orature and Traditionalists
13 The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present day
?Mamadou Diawara
14 The Next Generation: Young Griots' Quest for Authority
?Jan Jansen
15 In Praise of History; History as Praise
?Karin Barber
16 From Essentialism to Pluralisms: New Directions in Precolonial West African History from the Oral History Archive at Fajara, the Gambia
?Toby Green
17 Dreamworlds: Cultural Narrative in Asante Visionary Experience
?Thomas C. McCaskie
Part 5: Projects, Texts, and Representations
18 The Life of a Text: Carsten Niebuhr and ?Abd al-Ra?man Aga's Das innere von Afrika
?Camille Lefebvre
19 The Kano Chronicle Revisited
?Paul E. Lovejoy
20 Slavery or Death in Sokoto and Borno: Tactics, Legalities and Sources
?Murray Last
21 A Story of Exile, a Story in Exile: Louis Hunkanrin, Mauritania and 'Un Forfait Colonial' (Revisited)
?E. Ann McDougall
22 Edmond Fortier (1862-1928): Photographer, Documentarian and Creator of Stereotypes in West Africa
?Daniela Moreau
Afterword: Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias' Publications and Interview
?Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
Interpreting Sources of the African Past: An Interview with Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias by
?Benedetta Rossi
Introduction
Part 1: Archaeology and Material Landscapes
1 All that Glitters is not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa
?Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita
2 African Archaeology and the 'Chalk Line Effect': A Consideration of Mali City and Sigilmasa
?Francois-Xavier Fauvelle
3 The 'Pays Do' and the Origins of the Empire of Mali
?Kevin C. MacDonald, Nikolas Gestrich, Seydou Camara, Daouda Keita
Part 2: Imagined Landscapes and Moral Topographies
4 Imitation and Creativity in the Establishment of Islam in Oyo
?Insa Nolte
5 Fante 'Origins': The Problematic Evidence of 'Tradition'
?Robin Law
6 The Unknowns of the Modern Era in the Greater Western Sahara: Reassessing the Territorial Location of the Wlad Dlaym (15th-17th Centuries)
?Benjamin Acloque
7 The Almoravids and As?arism: Regarding the Work of al-Muradi al-?a?rami
?Abdel Wedoud Ould-Cheikh
Part 3: Contextualising Writing and Written Sources
8 Inscribing the Now and the Hereafter: First Writings in Early African History
?Ghislaine Lydon
9 New Reinventions of the Sahel: Reflections on the Ta?ri? Genre in the Timbuktu Historiographical Production, Seventeenth to Twentieth Centuries
?Mauro Nobili
10 Calibrating the Scholarship of Timbuktu
?Charles C. Stewart
11 Rethinking the Place of Timbuktu in the Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa
?Bruce S. Hall
12 Two Examples of Sahelian Book Collectors Over Two Centuries
?Shamil Jeppie
Part 4: Contextualising Orature and Traditionalists
13 The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present day
?Mamadou Diawara
14 The Next Generation: Young Griots' Quest for Authority
?Jan Jansen
15 In Praise of History; History as Praise
?Karin Barber
16 From Essentialism to Pluralisms: New Directions in Precolonial West African History from the Oral History Archive at Fajara, the Gambia
?Toby Green
17 Dreamworlds: Cultural Narrative in Asante Visionary Experience
?Thomas C. McCaskie
Part 5: Projects, Texts, and Representations
18 The Life of a Text: Carsten Niebuhr and ?Abd al-Ra?man Aga's Das innere von Afrika
?Camille Lefebvre
19 The Kano Chronicle Revisited
?Paul E. Lovejoy
20 Slavery or Death in Sokoto and Borno: Tactics, Legalities and Sources
?Murray Last
21 A Story of Exile, a Story in Exile: Louis Hunkanrin, Mauritania and 'Un Forfait Colonial' (Revisited)
?E. Ann McDougall
22 Edmond Fortier (1862-1928): Photographer, Documentarian and Creator of Stereotypes in West Africa
?Daniela Moreau
Afterword: Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias' Publications and Interview
?Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
Interpreting Sources of the African Past: An Interview with Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias by
?Benedetta Rossi