INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ISLAMIC THOUGHT IN AFRICA

February 25, 2018

A dialogue between Elisha Renne (University of Michigan), author of Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria (Indiana University Press, 2018), and Joseph Hill (University of Alberta), author of Wrapping Authority: Women Islamic Leaders in a Sufi Movement in Dakar, Senegal (University of Toronto Press, 2018).

Discussants: Henri Lauziere (history, Northwestern) and Wendell Marsh (Buffett Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow, Northwestern).

November 26, 2018

A dialogue between Shenila Khoja-Moolji (Bowdoin College), author of Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in South Asia (University of California Press, 2018), and Hannah Hoechner (University of East Anglia), author of Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria: Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Discussants: Brannon Ingram (religious studies, Northwestern), Ashish Koul (history, Northwestern), Robert Launay (anthropology, Northwestern University), and Nermeen Mouftah (religion, Butler University).

The event featured a screening of "Duniya Juyi Juyi" (which means "How Life Goes" in Hausa), a 69-minute docudrama written, filmed, directed, and acted in by nine students from Qur'anic schools in Kano, Nigeria. Qur'anic school students, known as almajirai, have become convenient scapegoats for various social ills in Nigeria. This film shows the almajirai's own perspective on their education. Hannah Hoechner, who produced the film in collaboration with the students, lead a discussion.

Download an event poster here.

April 4, 2018

A dialogue between Lamin Sanneh (Yale University and Yale Divinity School), author of Beyond Jihad: The Pacifist Tradition in West African Islam (Oxford University Press, 2016); and Alexander Thurston (Georgetown University), author of Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017)

 Discussant: Sean Hanretta (Northwestern University)

March 7, 2019

A dialog between Sarah Eltantawi (Evergreen State College), author of Shariʻah on Trial: Northern Nigeria’s Islamic Revolution (University of California Press, 2017) and Brandon Kendhammer (Ohio University), author of  Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy and Law in Northern Nigeria (University of Chicago Press, 2016)

Discussant: Brannon Ingram, religious studies, Northwestern University

January 31, 2019

A dialogue between Ousmane Oumar Kane (Harvard Divinity School), author of Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa (Harvard University Press, 2016) and Charles Stewart (emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), editor of Arabic Writings of Mauritania and the Western Sahara (Brill, 2015), volume 5 in Brill’s Arabic Literature of Africa series).

Discussant: Robert Launary (anthropology, Northwestern)