Seminars
III- Seminar : The World seen from Africa 2024/2025
October 24, November 7 – 28,December 12, 2024
January 16, February 20, April 17 , May 15, 2025
24/10/2024
Ali Benmakhlouf
Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Maroc
Ibn Khaldun: How To Shape A Universal Paradigm Of Human Sciences From The History Of Maghreb Countries?
The first lecture titled “Ibn Khaldun: How To Shape A Universal Paradigm Of Human Sciences From The History Of Maghreb Countries?” took place on October 24, 2024, and was presented by Prof. Ali Benmakhlouf, Director of CAS and Professor. The conference assessed the most contemporary readings on the one hand, and 19th, 20th century appropriations on the other. But it will also look at how ibn Khaldun’s text offers new 14th-century concepts for thinking about human society (Al Umrân), historical fact and the elements that promote or threaten social ties (Al Asabiyya). It’s a conceptual approach with universal value, proposed by an author who belongs to a Maghrebean cultural axis which, in the eyes of Western thought, has remained a minor axis.
7/11/2024
Oumelbanine Zhiri
University of California San Diego, UCSD
Beyond Orientalism, Ahmad Ibn Qasim Al-Hajari Between Europe And North Africa.
Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari was Morisco, born in Spain around 1570, who made a life and career first in Marrakech, then in Tunis, where he died after 1640. He was an official in the Saadi makhzen, an envoy to Europe, a translator, and a writer, who produced a fascinating autobiography. His story and his cultural role are not only interesting in themselves, they also help understand the time in which he lived. Most importantly, they illustrate the exchange and interactions between the Maghreb and Europe in the early modern period, in terms of diplomatic, intellectual, and technical cultures. Ahmad al-Hajari is an emblematic figure of his time, who is now getting the attention he deserves. Through his life and work, one can go beyond the Orientalist views that still define our understanding of the relations between North Africa and Europe, and describe these connections in a more complex and balanced way
28/11/2024
Sabrine Hakam
CAS / UM6P
Decolonizing the Curriculum: A View From The ‘Global South’
This talk explores the imperative of decolonising the curriculum, emphasizing the integration of subaltern voices—feminist, southern, postcolonial, and ‘other’—within academic institutions. By recontextualizing traditional Eurocentric narratives as vernacular expressions of northern academia, we challenge the universality of northern theory and engage with southern knowledge to dismantle hegemonic structures. Specifically focusing on urban geography, we confront the discipline’s ‘unbearable whiteness’ and embrace the transformative potential of the ‘undercommons,’ which includes black, indigenous, poor, feminist, and subaltern voices. This talk will interrogate who gets to represent the ‘global south’ in historically Eurocentric disciplines, aiming to elevate subversive intellectual work and contribute to a more pluralistic understanding of the ‘global south.’
12/12/2024
Aomar Boum
University of California Los Angeles, UCLA
Saharan Family Archives On Race And Religion.
Unlike the general colonial perception that (pre)-Saharan Northwest African oases had virtually no Islamic intellectual heritage, the corpus of personal family manuscripts highlight a long history of Islamic learning and intellectual production in the region. After the gradual adoption of Islam by local populations in pre-Saharan and sub-Saharan regions and the steady Islamization of urban and rural societies, writing and paper became a significant part of learning in the region. Paper manuscripts were circulated across Saharan, pre-Saharan and West African communities with the increasing arrivals of Islamic merchants. Yet, and unlike Timbuktu where many private libraries have been saved thanks to the efforts of international organization and digitization, personal family libraries in southern Moroccan and Mauritanian oases are still threatened by temperature variations, termites, lack of scientific conservation and sand dunes. In this talk, I highlight indigenous cases of Islamic conservation in the absence of state initiatives and support.
16/1/2025
Fréderic Viguier
New York Univeristy
African Access To International Education : Path Dependencies And New Developments
This presentation investigates this history of higher-educational mobilities in Africa from the 1950s (shortly before the era of independence) to today. We will consider countries across the entire African continent, and describe the evolution of host countries over time, both within Africa, and outside of Africa, in Europe, Asia, and America. We will interpret this data with a host of variables that determine access to international higher education: language and diasporic connections, income and costs, gender, and student visa policies. We will ask ourselves to what extent old, post-colonial path dependencies have been loosened in the last few decades.
