{"id":9288,"date":"2026-05-19T17:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T15:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/?p=9288"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:15:11","slug":"seminar-from-souss-to-sofala-on-foot-global-histories-of-medieval-africa-2-june-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/uncategorized\/seminar-from-souss-to-sofala-on-foot-global-histories-of-medieval-africa-2-june-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Seminar &#8220;From Souss to Sofala, on foot. Global histories of medieval Africa&#8221; &#8211; 2 June 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"819\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Seminaire-Adrien-Delmas-Instagram-Post-45-819x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9289\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Seminaire-Adrien-Delmas-Instagram-Post-45-819x1024.png 819w, https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Seminaire-Adrien-Delmas-Instagram-Post-45-240x300.png 240w, https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Seminaire-Adrien-Delmas-Instagram-Post-45-768x960.png 768w, https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Seminaire-Adrien-Delmas-Instagram-Post-45.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Wits History Workshop and IFAS-Research are pleased to invite you to a seminar by Dr Adrien Delmas (Sciences Po Paris), titled &#8220;<strong>From Souss to Sofala, on foot. Global histories of medieval Africa<\/strong>&#8220;, on <strong>Tuesday, 2 June 2026, at the Wits History Workshop<\/strong> (RS207, 2nd floor, Robert Sobukwe block, East Campus, Wits University). The event is free and open to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br>Abstract:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drawing on the history of the two Portuguese fortresses built in 1505 in the Souss and at Sofala, this essay explores the possibility of a shared medieval history between the opposite ends of the African continent. After reviewing the global history frameworks commonly applied to medieval Africa\u2014namely the \u201cfirst globalization\u201d of the sixteenth century, on the one hand, and the \u201cGlobal Middle Ages\u201d between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, on the other\u2014it advances the hypothesis of a third form of African globalization, internal to the continent and discernible through the archaeological model of the route. These \u201cfossil routes\u201d, and the regimes of mobility they underpinned, have indeed left traces not only in the medieval archaeological contexts of Southeast and Northwest Africa, but also in contemporary texts, notably the&nbsp;<em>Suf\u0101l\u012bya<\/em>&nbsp;of Ahmad ibn M\u0101jid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adrien Delmas<\/strong>\u00a0is a specialist in the medieval and early modern history of Southern Africa. Among his publications are\u00a0<em>Written Culture in Colonial Context<\/em>\u00a0(Brill, 2012),\u00a0<em>Les voyages de l&#8217;\u00e9crit. Culture \u00e9crite et expansion europ\u00e9enne \u00e0 l&#8217;\u00e9poque moderne<\/em>\u00a0(Honor\u00e9 Champion, 2013),\u00a0<em>Towards a History of Archaeology from South Africa<\/em>\u00a0(SAAB, 2019), and\u00a0<em>Cuba &amp; Africa, 1959\u20131994<\/em> (Wits University Press, 2021). He served as Director of IFAS-Research from 2012 to 2016 and of the Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat from 2018 to 2022. He is presently Vice-Dean of the Undergraduate College at Sciences Po, Paris.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wits History Workshop and IFAS-Research are pleased to invite you to a seminar by Dr Adrien Delmas (Sciences Po Paris), titled &#8220;From Souss to Sofala, on foot. Global histories of medieval Africa&#8220;, on Tuesday, 2 June 2026, at the Wits History Workshop (RS207, 2nd floor, Robert Sobukwe block, East Campus, Wits University). The event [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-events","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9288"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9292,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions\/9292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ifas.org.za\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}