About Sara Katz

Sara Katz is a postdoctoral fellow in the Arts & Humanities Grant Studio at UNC-Chapel Hill. She was previously a postdoc in the History Department at Duke University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Loyola University New Orleans. Her research examines the history of the Nigerian hajj in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Her interests include Muslim-Christian relations, visual culture, and global Islam.

Sara Katz is a postdoctoral fellow in the Arts & Humanities Grant Studio at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her research examines the history of the Nigerian hajj in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Her interests include Muslim-Christian relations, visual culture, and global Islam.

NBN Episodes hosted by Sara:

Pedro Monaville, "Students of the World: Global 1968 and Decolonization in the Congo" (Duke UP, 2022)

August 23, 2023

Students of the World

Pedro Monaville
Hosted by Sara Katz

On June 30, 1960—the day of the Congo’s independence—Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a fiery speech in which he conjured a definitive shift away f…

Enrique Martino, "Touts: Recruiting Indentured Labor in the Gulf of Guinea" (de Gruyter, 2022)

May 20, 2023

Touts

Enrique Martino
Hosted by Sara Katz

Touts: Recruiting Indentured Labor in the Gulf of Guinea (de Gruyter, 2022) is a historical account of the troubled formation of a colonial labor mark…

Cajetan Iheka, "African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics" (Duke UP, 2021)

November 22, 2022

African Ecomedia

Cajetan Iheka
Hosted by Sara Katz

In African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics (Duke UP, 2021), Cajetan Iheka examines the ecological footprint of media in Africa alongside t…

Saheed Aderinto, "Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria" (Ohio UP, 2022)

October 10, 2022

Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa

Saheed Aderinto
Hosted by Sara Katz

With this multispecies study of animals as instrumentalities of the colonial state in Nigeria, Saheed Aderinto argues that animals, like humans, were …

Paul Naylor, "From Rebels to Rulers: Writing Legitimacy in the Early Sokoto State" (James Currey, 2021)

August 17, 2022

From Rebels to Rulers

Paul Naylor
Hosted by Sara Katz

Sokoto was the largest and longest lasting of West Africa's nineteenth-century Muslim empires. Its intellectual and political elite left behind a vast…

Moses E. Ochonu, "Emirs in London: Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity" (Indiana UP, 2022)

June 21, 2022

Emirs in London

Moses E. Ochonu
Hosted by Sara Katz

Emirs in London: Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity (Indiana UP, 2022) recounts how Northern Nigerian Muslim aristocrats who traveled to Britai…

Mark Fathi Massoud, "Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

June 21, 2022

Shari'a, Inshallah

Mark Fathi Massoud
Hosted by Sara Katz

Western analysts have long denigrated Islamic states as antagonistic, even antithetical, to the rule of law. Mark Fathi Massoud tells a different stor…

Shobana Shankar, "An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India and the Spectre of Race" (Oxford UP, 2021)

April 29, 2022

An Uneasy Embrace

Shobana Shankar
Hosted by Sara Katz

The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Ghanaian protests over Gandhi statues to American Vice President Kamala Harri…

Vicki L. Brennan, "Singing Yoruba Christianity: Music, Media, and Morality" (Indiana UP, 2018)

March 8, 2022

Singing Yoruba Christianity

Vicki L. Brennan
Hosted by Sara Katz

Singing the same song is a central part of the worship practice for members for the Cherubim and Seraphim Christian Church in Lagos, Nigeria. Vicki L.…

Candace M. Keller, "Imaging Culture: Photography in Mali, West Africa" (Indiana UP, 2021)

February 28, 2022

Imaging Culture

Candace M. Keller
Hosted by Sara Katz

Imaging Culture: Photography in Mali, West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2021) is a sociohistorical study of the meaning, function, and aesthetic …

Eghosa Imasuen, "Fine Boys: A Novel" (Ohio UP, 2021)

February 22, 2022

Fine Boys

Eghosa Imasuen
Hosted by Sara Katz

In Fine Boys: A Novel (Ohio University Press, 2021), Ewaen is a Nigerian teenager, bored at home in Warri and eager to flee from his parents’ unhappy …

Isaac A. Kamola, "Making the World Global: U.S. Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary" (Duke UP, 2019)

December 29, 2021

Making the World Global

Isaac A. Kamola
Hosted by Sara Katz

Following World War II the American government and philanthropic foundations fundamentally remade American universities into sites for producing knowl…

Matthew H. Brown, "Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address" (Duke UP, 2021)

December 14, 2021

Indirect Subjects

Matthew H. Brown
Hosted by Sara Katz

In Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address (Duke UP, 2021), Matthew H. Brown analyzes the content of the prolific Nigerian film industry's mostly…

Drew A. Thompson, "Filtering Histories: The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times" (U Michigan Press, 2021)

December 6, 2021

Filtering Histories

Drew A. Thompson
Hosted by Sara Katz

Photographers and their images were critical to the making of Mozambique, first as a colony of Portugal and then as independent nation at war with apa…

Max Siollun, "What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule" (Hurst, 2021)

October 27, 2021

What Britain Did to Nigeria

Max Siollun
Hosted by Sara Katz

In this ambitious book, Max Siollun provides an overview of Nigerian history from 1472 to the 1950s. As such, What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short His…

Cheikh Anta Babou, "The Muridiyya on the Move: Islam, Migration, and Place Making" (Ohio UP, 2021)

October 21, 2021

The Muridiyya on the Move

Cheikh Anta Babou
Hosted by Sara Katz

The construction of collective identity among the Muridiyya abroad is a communal but contested endeavor. Differing conceptions of what should be the m…

Susanna Fioratta, "Global Nomads: An Ethnography of Migration, Islam, and Politics in West Africa" (Oxford UP, 2020)

October 19, 2021

Global Nomads

Susanna Fioratta
Hosted by Sara Katz

Countering the traditional narrative of "migration as crisis," Global Nomads tells the story of a group of people for whom migration is not a symptom …

Ebenezer Obadare, "Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria" (Zed Books, 2018)

September 22, 2021

Pentecostal Republic

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, wi…