Event Details:
Session Description
In this session, historian Toby Green examines his new book, The Heretic of Cacheu (University of Chicago Press), through the lens of historical methods for studying the African past. In an era of big data, what is the significance of taking a micro-historical approach, and why is it significant as a means of recovering different approaches that are not constrained by the coloniality of data mining? Green will discuss how focusing on the life biography of an African woman of the 17th century can illuminate aspects of the past that are increasingly significant, yet also increasingly overlooked.
Speaker Biography
Toby Green is a Fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College, London. His books include the award-winning A Fistful of Shells. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Lagos-based Global Africa Institute, and was also an advisory board member for the Amilcar Cabral Centenary Conference of 2024 (Bissau/Praia). Green has worked on curriculum change in the teaching of African history both in the UK and in West Africa, and has been a member of the UK government’s Model History Curriculum Advisory Group.