New Books Network
African Studies
African Studies September 24, 2021

Islamic Scholarship in Africa

New Directions and Global Contexts

Ousmane Oumar Kane

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
In 1937, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, travelling to Mecca to make his first hajj, encountered Egyptian scholars who couldn’t fathom that Niasse’s erudition was a product of his fully Senegalese education …

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African Studies September 22, 2021

Pentecostal Republic

Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria

Ebenezer Obadare

Hosted by Sara Katz
Throughout its history, Nigeria has been plagued by religious divisions. Tensions have only intensified since the restoration of democracy in 1999, with the divide between Christian south and Muslim north …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel August 31, 2021

From Africa To Zion

The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel's First Ethiopian-born Journalist

Danny Adeno Abebe

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
In 1984, in an unprecedented act of brotherhood, Israel airlifted thousands of persecuted and starving Ethiopian Jews from Africa to Israel. They had been waiting in Ethiopia for millennia, sustained …
World Christianity August 30, 2021

Faith in Flux

Pentecostalism and Mobility in Rural Mozambique

Devaka Premawardhana

Hosted by Byung Ho Choi
Anthropologist Devaka Premawardhana arrived in Africa to study the so-called explosion of Pentecostalism, the spread of which has indeed been massive. It is the continent's fastest growing form of Christianity …
National Security August 27, 2021

Your Sons Are at Your Service

Tunisia's Missionaries of Jihad

Aaron Y. Zelin

Hosted by Beth Windisch
Tunisia became one of the largest sources of foreign fighters for the Islamic State—even though the country stands out as a democratic bright spot of the Arab uprisings and despite …
General History August 20, 2021

Militarizing Marriage

West African Soldiers' Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

Sarah J. Zimmerman

Hosted by Michael Vann
Following tirailleurs sénégalais’ deployments in West Africa, Congo, Madagascar, North Africa, Syria-Lebanon, Vietnam, and Algeria from the 1880s to 1962, Militarizing Marriage West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French …
African Studies August 12, 2021

Village Work

Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana

Alice Wiemers

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a different starting point? In Village Work: Development and Rural …
Economics August 11, 2021

Regime Threats and State Solutions

Bureaucratic Loyalty and Embeddedness in Kenya

Mai Hassan

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
When trying to understand how to help countries escape poverty, economists initially focused on macro topics like inflation, government deficits, trade balances, and capital inflows. Later there was a shift …
Economics August 4, 2021

The Politics of Order in Informal Markets

How the State Shapes Private Governance

Shelby Grossman

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Property rights are important for economic exchange, but many governments don't protect them. Private market organizations can fill this gap by providing an institutional structure to enforce agreements, but with …
African Studies July 28, 2021

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Christopher J. Lee

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Kwame Anthony Appiah is among the most respected philosophers and thinkers of his generation. In Kwame Anthony Appiah (Routledge, 2021), Christopher Lee introduces the reader not only to the contributions …
African Studies July 20, 2021

A Bold Profession

African Nurses in Rural Apartheid South Africa

Leslie Anne Hadfield

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
The first African nurse was certified in the Ciskei region of South Africa during the early decades of the twentieth century. Since then, African nurses have played a key role …
Mobilities and Methods July 16, 2021

Blackness in Morocco

Gnawa Identity Through Music and Visual Culture

Cynthia J. Becker

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
For more than thirteen centuries, caravans transported millions of enslaved people from Africa south of the Sahara into what is now the Kingdom of Morocco. Today there are no museums …
Gender Studies July 6, 2021

Out of Time

The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality

Rahul Rao

Hosted by Isabel Machado
Between 2009 and 2014, an anti-homosexuality law circulating in the Ugandan parliament came to be the focus of a global conversation about queer rights. The law attracted attention for the …
Literary Studies July 2, 2021

At Penpoint

African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War

Monica Popescu

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
In At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War (Duke UP, 2020), Monica Popescu traces the development of African literature during the second half of the twentieth century …
Art June 30, 2021

Creating Spaces of Hope

Young Artists and the New Imagination in Egypt

Caroline Seymour-Jorn

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
It is now just over a decade since protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square started Egypt's chapter in the events of the Arab Spring. Much has been made in western criticism …
Anthropology June 15, 2021

Island of Hope

Migration and Solidarity in the Mediterranean

Megan A. Carney

Hosted by Fulya Pinar
With thousands of migrants attempting the perilous maritime journey from North Africa to Europe each year, transnational migration is a defining feature of social life in the Mediterranean today. On …
Mobilities and Methods June 11, 2021

The Outside

Migration As Life in Morocco

Alice Elliot

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
The Outside: Migration as Life in Morocco (Indiana UP, 2021) traces how migration has come to occupy a striking place in the lives of many Moroccans. A full 10 percent of …
Genocide Studies June 9, 2021

A Sad Fiasco

Colonial Concentration Camps in Southern Africa, 1900–1908

Jonas Kreienbaum

Hosted by Kelly McFall
Holocaust and Genocide historians have spent much time and effort recently considering the connections between the experiences and ideas of colonialism and subsequent mass atrocity violence.  Jonas Kreienbaum's recent book …
French Studies June 4, 2021

Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930

Judith Surkis

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Judith Surkis's Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930 (Cornell UP, 2019) traces the intersection of colonialism, law, land expropriation, sex, gender, and family during the century after the French …
Islamic Studies May 28, 2021

Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria

Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty

Hannah Hoechner

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In a global context of widespread fears over Islamic radicalization and militancy, poor Muslim youth, especially those socialized in religious seminaries, have attracted overwhelmingly negative attention. In northern Nigeria, male …