Sahara East and West: A New Academic Approach to Literary Sources

A conference organized within the framework of the project "The Islamic literary tradition in Sub-Saharan Africa: a new academic network", supported by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. 

Sub-Saharan Africa boasts a long and variegated written heritage in both Arabic and local languages. Scholars in the Islamic literary traditions of different Western and Eastern African countries meet to discuss in a comparative perspective the similiarities and differences, the difficulties and challenges of their respective research fields.

Programme

09:00  Alessandro Gori (University of Copenhagen)
            The Islamic literary tradition in Sub-Saharan Africa: a New Academic Network

09:30  Shamil Jeppie (University of Cape Town)
            The making of a Timbuktu book collector

10:00  Hassen Muhammad Kawo (University of Cape Town)
             Peasant intellectuals and manuscript collections in South Eastern Ethiopia:
             An overview of Abba Hamido Family Collection

10:30  Michele Petrone (University of Copenhagen)
             Tijaniyya networks between Ethiopia and West Africa

11:00  Coffee break

11:15  Susana Molins Lliteras (University of Cape Town)
             Spain in Timbuktu: the Fondo Kati library

11:45  Adday Hernández López (University of Copenhagen)
             Transfer of knowledge in Ethiopia: the case of a šayḫ from Wallo

12:15  Lunch break

13:30  Andrea Brigaglia (University of Cape Town)
             The Islamic calligraphic tradition in twentieth-century Nigeria, from scribal
             culture to print culture

14:00  Irmeli Perho (University of Copenhagen)
             The vagaries of hamza and other orthographic features in the Ethiopian
             manuscripts

14:30  Sara Fani (University of Copenhagen)
             Scribal practices in Arabic Manuscripts from Ethiopia: regional peculiarities of
             graphemes and Their Possible External Models

15:00  Final discussion

For further information please contact Alessandro Gori.