{"id":144,"date":"2013-11-08T13:47:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T13:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/2013\/11\/08\/the-arts-and-crafts-of-literacy\/"},"modified":"2017-11-28T20:55:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T18:55:59","slug":"the-arts-and-crafts-of-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/events\/conferences\/the-arts-and-crafts-of-literacy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arts and Crafts of Literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manuscript Cultures in Muslim Sub-Saharan Africa<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n

Book History Conference
\n5-6 September 2013<\/h4>\n

University of Cape Town<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An International Conference convened by:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Dmitry BONDAREV (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg)
\nDr Andrea BRIGAGLIA (CCI; Department of Religious Studies, UCT)
\nProf Shamil JEPPIE (Tombouct<\/em>ou Manuscripts Project \u2013 HUMA, UCT)
\nDr Mauro NOBILI (Department of Religious Studies\/ Tombouct<\/em>ou Manuscripts Project \u2013 HUMA, UCT)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The conference features contributions by leading specialists in the field of Muslim manuscript cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. The papers cover different dimensions of manuscripts (materials, technologies, practices and communities involved in the production, commercialisation, circulation, preservation, and consumption) produced in sub-Saharan Africa, either in Arabic or in local languages written in the Arabic alphabet (ajami).<\/p>\n

Africa has suffered, and still suffers, from many academic stereotypes. For a long time, it has been deprived of its past by the assumption that there was no history in Africa before the arrival of the Europeans (Hugh R.\u00a0 Trevor-Roper 1963). With the struggle for independence in the 1950s-1960s, historians \u2013 both local and foreign \u2013 undertook to return to Africa its past. However, they did it by developing an approach that was almost exclusively based on orality (Vansina 1964). During the last two decades, the (re-)discovery of thousands of manuscripts in different regions of the continent has compelled scholars to abandon the equation Africa = orality and legitimately assigned to the continent the status of a civilization of written literacy. This new interest is confirmed by recent publications such as the multi-volume encyclopaedic work The<\/em> Arabic Literature of Africa <\/em>(John O. Hunwick et al., 1995-).<\/p>\n

Most of the existing studies mainly aim at serving literary and historical purposes, and focus only on the textual dimension of the manuscripts. However, the manuscript is not only \u2018intellectual content\u2019. In a recent essay in the collection The Trans-Saharan Book Trade: Manuscript Culture, Arabic Literacy and Intellectual History in Muslim Africa<\/em> (Kr\u00e4tli & Lydon 2011), Graziano Kr\u00e4tli refers to the \u201cdual nature [of the manuscript]\u2026 container and content, medium and message, at one and the same time. This is represented by the difference between embodied<\/em> and embedded <\/em>knowledge, the former pertaining specifically to the content \u2013 the object of embodiment \u2013, while the latter involves more intimately the container as a material, technological, economic and cultural object\u201d.<\/p>\n

This conference accepts the challenge launched by Kr\u00e4tli, and aims at gathering contributions on the different dimensions of the manuscript, i.e. the materials, the technologies, the practices and the communities involved in the production, commercialization, circulation, preservation and consumption. In doing this, the conference follows in the path of the Tombouct<\/em>ou project, which has already built an extended network of collaborations\u00a0 in the continent and beyond, leading to relevant publications like The meanings of Timbuktu <\/em>(Shamil Jeppie & Bashir Diagne 2008). The focus of the conference will be the Islamic manuscripts produced in sub-Saharan Africa, either in Arabic or in local languages written in the Arabic alphabet (\u2018ajami<\/em>). With the term \u201cIslamic\u201d, the conference refers to manuscripts \u201cthat [were] the product of an intellectual tradition of Islamic learning\u2026 Such documentation, to be sure, was not always linked to religious matters. But to the extent that it was usually framed in the language, perspective and calendar of Islam, this knowledge can be qualified as \u2018Islamic\u2019 in nature\u201d (Lydon 2004).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Programme:<\/strong><\/p>\n

5 September 2013<\/h3>\n

08:30-09:00 Greetings and introduction<\/p>\n

Panel 1: West African manuscripts: the physical make-up<\/h4>\n

(Chair D. Bondarev)<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 09:00-09:40 Michaelle BIDDLE
    \nWesleyan University (Middletown)
    \nUsing watermarks to date sub-Saharan Islamic manuscripts<\/li>\n
  • 09:40-10:20 Maimadu Barma MUTAI
    \nUniversity of Maiduguri (Maiduguri)
    \n\u201cWriting instruments in northern Nigerian manuscript culture\u201d<\/li>\n
  • 10:40-11:20 Mauro NOBILI
    \nUniversity of Cape Town
    \nScript styles in West African manuscripts: a taxonomy<\/li>\n
  • 11:20-12:00 Mahmoud Dadab HAMMOU
    \nScholar and calligrapher (Timbuktu)
    \nThe making of a calligrapher in twentieth-century Timbuktu<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Panel 2: West African manuscripts and knowledge transmission<\/h4>\n

    (Chair M. Nobili)<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • 13:30-14:10 Shamil JEPPIE
      \nUniversity of Cape Town
      \nTo Be Confirmed<\/li>\n
    • 14:10-14:50 Susana MOLINS LLITERAS
      \nUniversity of Cape Town
      \nA preliminary appraisal of marginalia found on West African Manuscripts from the Timbuktu collections<\/li>\n
    • 15:10-15:50 Salisu BALA
      \nAhmadu Bello University (Zaria)
      \n\u201cThe Arewa House manuscript collection: a historical perspective\u201d<\/li>\n
    • 15:50-16:30 Shaheed MATHEE
      \nUniversity of Johannesburg
      \nLetters and fatw\u0101s as a source of Timbuktu\u2019s history from below: a paternity dispute<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Friday 6 September<\/h3>\n

      Panel 3: Ajami<\/em> manuscripts in Sub-Saharan Africa (1)<\/h4>\n

      (Chair S. Jeppie)<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \n
      • 08:30-09:10 Keer VERSTEEGH
        \nRadboud University Nijmegen
        \nLanguage choice and Islamic learning in Arabic-Afrikaans<\/li>\n
      • 09:10-09:50 Anna SIIM
        \nMuseum of Anthropology and Ethnography (St. Petersburg)
        \nAfrikaans-Arabic Texts: Bigraphy and Bilinguism in Synchrony and Diachrony<\/li>\n
      • 09:50-10:30 Xavier LUFFIN
        \nUniversit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles
        \nThe Arabic and Swahili documents from Congo: Who were their scribes?<\/li>\n
      • 10:50-11:30 Andreas WETTER
        \nHumboldt University, (Berlin)
        \nIslamic Literary Tradition in Wollo, North-eastern Ethiopia<\/li>\n
      • 11:30-12:10 Adrien Delmas
        \nIFAS, Johannesburg
        \nPortuguese encounters with African written cultures in the 16th century<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Panel 4: Ajami<\/em> manuscripts in Sub-Saharan Africa (2)<\/h4>\n

        (Chair A. Brigaglia)<\/strong><\/p>\n

          \n
        • 14:10-14:50 Rudolph WARE
          \nUniversity of Wisconsin
          \nVerse and Verso: The Back of the Qur\u2019anic Lawh in Arabic and Wolofal Literacy Training.<\/li>\n
        • 14:50-15:30 Tal TAMARI
          \nCEMAF (Paris)
          \n\u201cBamana texts in Arabic characters: Some leaves from Mali\u201d<\/li>\n
        • 15:50-16:30 Dmitry BONDAREV
          \nCSMC University of Hamburg
          \nEmergence of a dedicated ample spaced layout in annotated West African manuscripts (Kanem-Borno, Senegambia and Mali)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

           <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Manuscript Cultures in Muslim Sub-Saharan Africa Book History Conference 5-6 September 2013 University of Cape Town   An International Conference convened by: Dr Dmitry BONDAREV (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg) Dr Andrea BRIGAGLIA (CCI; Department of Religious Studies, UCT) Prof Shamil JEPPIE (Tombouctou Manuscripts Project \u2013 HUMA, UCT) Dr Mauro […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conferences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}