Ken Cuno, History, received the Albert Hourani Book Prize of the Middle East Studies Association for Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology, and Law in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Egypt (Syracuse University Press, 2015). At the Association’s annual meeting in Denver, in November 2015, he presented “Claiming heirship: a litigant strategy in the Sharia Courts of nineteenth-century Egypt.” He also presented “Reinventing Marriage in Egypt,” at the University of Connecticut and Northwestern University in March and May, 2016.

Valerie Hoffman, Religion, delivered an invited paper, “Ibadis in Zanzibar and the Nahda,” at the Sixth International Conference on Oman and Ibadism (conference theme: The Ibadi Nahda), organized by Oman’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and held in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 1–3, 2015. Nahda means “renaissance” in Arabic. It has been used to refer to the revival of Arabic literature in the late 19th and early 20th century. In Oman today, “Nahda” is used by the regime to refer to Oman’s social and economic renaissance since Sultan Qaboos assumed the throne in 1970. But this conference was on the modern revival of Ibadi scholarship and political activism. I was asked to speak on the Ibadi Nahda in East Africa, but all my sources related to Zanzibar, so I restricted it to that.

Laila Hussein Moustafa, Middle East and North African Studies Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University Library, was appointed to the

* Donor Board of Arcadia, which is administered by the British Library and she will start her appointment in September 2016. The Donor Board supports the preservation of endangered archival and museum material, and supports open access advocacy and repositories.

The Donor Board is made up of nine members: six external experts, two representatives of the British Library, and the chairman of Arcadia. Hussein Moustafa will provide expertise for the areas of the Middle East and Northern Africa. She said of her appointment to the Arcadia Board: “It was an honor to receive the invitation to serve on the Donor Board of Arcadia and it is a welcome opportunity to bring my expertise to the work of the Endangered Archives Program of the British Library. I have admired contributions of this program and I look forward to contributing to the ongoing work to identify and preserve the important archival materials for the cultures from which they come and scholars around the world.”

The Donor Board of Arcadia awards three types of grants to charities and scholarly institutions around the world: cultural, environmental, and open access. Cultural grants help to preserve at risk cultural heritage and supports digital documentation ofnear-extinct languages, endangered historical archives, artifacts, and cultural practices. Environmental grants preserve endangered habitats, making research on those places possible and sustainable. Open access grants help to make research, legal materials, and publications available to all through the Internet. Since 2002, Arcadia has awarded more than $363 million to projects around the world including many counties in Africa.

*Associate Editor for Information Technology, 2016, The Review of Middle East Studies (RoMES)

*Special Assignment and Goodwill Ambassadors, 2015—Genealogy and Local History (GENLOC)—nternational Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

 

Mauro Nobili, History, attended a workshop at Northwestern University titled, “From the Primitive City of Timbuctoo to the  Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: The Legacy of the John O. Hunwick.” University of Birmingham. “New reinventions of the Sahel: Reflections on the tārikh genre in the Timbuktu historiographical production, 17th-20th centuries.”

The workshop was part of a month-long series of events of the Malian-Franco-German Manifestation called Paroles de sagesse—Les manuscrits anciens du Mali (The voices of wisdom in the ancient manuscripts of Mali). I led a full two-day workshop on Cataloguing Arabic Manuscripts from Sub-saharan Africa, as well as the closing ceremony. The workshop had been organized by the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), University ofHamburg, in association with the Centre for Contemporary Islam, University of Cape Town, and it was held at Bibliothèque Nationale du Mali, Bamako, on October 7-8 2015 (closing ceremony on the 9).

*received the 2016 West African Research Association Residency to host Dr. Mohamed Diagayete, Senior researcher at the Ahmad Institut of Timbuktu.

*was one of the main instructors in a 5-day workshop on Arabic manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque National in Bamako, Mali, October 2015.

Publications

Richard Akresh, “Climate Change, Conflict, and Children,”Future of Children, 2016, 26(1): 51-71.

“Altruism, Cooperation, and Efficiency: Agricultural Production in Polygynous Households”(with Joyce Chen and Charity Moore),Economic Development and Cultural Change,2016, 64(4): 661-696.

Merle L. Bowen (2016): “Who owns paradise? Afro-Brazilians and Ethnic Tourism in Brazil's Quilombos," African and Black Diaspora: an International Journal, DOI: 10.1080/17528631.2016.1189689

 

Laila Hussein Moustafa, "Lessons from World War II and the Holocaust: What Can Be Done through Oral History to Save the World Heritage of Memory in Africa?” 81st IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Cape Town, South Africa, August 15-21, 2015. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/1276

“Follow Your Passion and Think Globally.” International Leads Library & Information Science Source, Vol. 29 Issue 2, pp. 1-5. http://www.ala.org/irrt/sites/ala.org.irrt/files/content/intlleads/leadsarchive/201506.pdf.

Mauro Nobili, “A short note on some historical accounts from the IFAN Manuscripts Collection,” History in Africa, 43, p. 379-388. This was the result of my stay in Dakar in Summer 2015, sponsored by the 2015 Research Board Award, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

David O’Brien, ed.,Civilisation in Nineteenth Art: A European Idea in a Global Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). Many essays on French and Italian art.

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Jesse Ribot

Announcing 35 Working Papers on Rights, Representation and Climate Interventions in Africa.

SDEP's main research project, the Responsive Forest Governance Initiative (RFGI),conducted research from 2011 to 2015 on local rights and representation in climate adaptation and mitigation forestry programs in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, with comparative cases in Nepal and Peru.RFGI is jointly directed by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP) Program of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). The program was generously supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). The 35 working papers and a list of 65 other RFGI publications are now all available online! See:https://sdep.earth.illinois.edu/programs/rfgi_working_papers.aspx