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X-WR-CALNAME:Early Modernity Beyond the West: Bruce Hall: Does an ‘Early 
 Modern’ Africa Begin with Paper?
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260909T065551Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_52703356444423
DTSTART:20260505T233000Z
DTEND:20260506T010000Z
DESCRIPTION:Please join Early Modernity Beyond the West for a talk entitled
 \, "Does an ‘Early Modern’ Africa Begin with Paper?: Arabic Writing an
 d Manuscripts in West Africa" with Professor Bruce Hall (History\, UC Berk
 eley). \n\nThe talk seeks to address the historical logics of circum-Sahar
 an textual practices and the values attributed to amassing collections of 
 manuscripts. If\, as Judith Scheele (2012) has argued\, Saharan commercial
  capital was invested in nodal points of exchange\, both in creating irrig
 ated gardens and sites of Islamic religious authority\, then we should exp
 ect to find libraries at these points of Saharan interaction and integrati
 on\, and they should tell us something about this larger history. The pape
 r seeks to identify and analyze Saharan centers of scholarly production an
 d networks of textual exchange across the region since the 16th century\, 
 as part of a wider history of human and capital circulation in the desert.
  It uses both the accounts of Saharan scholars and the contents of librari
 es as evidence of the overarching history of this intellectual world\, but
  also as a way of distinguishing temporal and regional differences. \n\nRS
 VP for the Bruce Hall talk\n\nHosted by Early Modernity Beyond the West an
 d co-sponsored by the Center for African Studies\, the Center for Medieval
  and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS)\, the Department of African and African 
 American Studies (DAAAS)\, and the Department of History \n\nMore details 
 to follow. \n\nEarly Modernity Beyond the West aims to investigate whether
  and how the concept of early modernity can be extended to Central and Eas
 tern Europe\, the Middle East\, Africa\, and Asia between the 15th and the
  18th centuries. The project brings together professors\, postdoctoral fel
 lows\, and graduate students from Stanford and from other institutions\, w
 ho work in the early modern field in history\, art history\, literature\, 
 and religion. In this way\, the group fosters reflection on the features a
 nd issues of early modernity.\n\nAssessing the breadth and relevance of ea
 rly modernity for Central and Eastern Europe\, the Middle East\, Africa\, 
 and Asia helps reconsider the concept on a global scale. In turn\, definin
 g early modernity as a transnational concept allows for more accurate anal
 yses of each region’s specificities. Hence\, the group’s guiding quest
 ions are: What are the defining traits of early modernity? What are the sp
 ecificities of local experiences of early modernity? How do these specific
 ities combine to delineate early modernity as a transnational concept?
GEO:37.427405;-122.1697
LOCATION:Building 260\, Pigott Hall\, Rm 252
SUMMARY:Early Modernity Beyond the West: Bruce Hall: Does an ‘Early Moder
 n’ Africa Begin with Paper?
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.stanford.edu/event/early-modernity-beyond-the-
 west-bruce-hall-uc-berkeley
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation/Talk
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