Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past

Toby Green is Senior Lecturer in Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College London. He is the author of The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Cambridge, 2012).Benedetta Rossi is Reader in African Studies at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labour, and Ecology in the Nigerien Sahel, 1800-2000 (Cambridge 2015).

[...] The editors have done a very good job of bringing together a wide range of scholars to engage with Moraes Farias’ ideas and give them new life. This book is a useful and welcome contribution that overcomes traditional disciplinary divides and makes for a very fitting tribute to this greatscholar and his work.[...]Sirio Canós-Donnay, Institute of Heritage Sciencies, Spanish National Research Council, in African Archaeology Review (2020) 37:315–316

• Notes on Contributors Introduction Part 1: Archaeology and Material Landscapes1 All that Glitters is not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan AfricaSonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita2 African Archaeology and the ‘Chalk Line Effect’: A Consideration of Māli City and SiğilmāsaFrançois-Xavier Fauvelle3 The ‘Pays Dô’ and the Origins of the Empire of MaliKevin C. MacDonald, Nikolas Gestrich, Seydou Camara, Daouda KeitaPart 2: Imagined Landscapes and Moral Topographies4 Imitation and Creativity in the Establishment of Islam in OyoInsa Nolte5 Fante ‘Origins’: The Problematic Evidence of ‘Tradition’Robin Law6 The Unknowns of the Modern Era in the Greater Western Sahara: Reassessing the Territorial Location of the Wlād Dlaym (15th–17th Centuries)Benjamin Acloque7 The Almoravids and Ašʿarism: Regarding the Work of al-Murādī al-ḤaḍramīAbdel Wedoud Ould-CheikhPart 3: Contextualising Writing and Written Sources8 Inscribing the Now and the Hereafter: First Writings in Early African HistoryGhislaine Lydon9 New Reinventions of the Sahel: Reflections on the Taʾrīḫ Genre in the Timbuktu Historiographical Production, Seventeenth to Twentieth CenturiesMauro Nobili10 Calibrating the Scholarship of TimbuktuCharles C. Stewart11 Rethinking the Place of Timbuktu in the Intellectual History of Muslim West AfricaBruce S. Hall12 Two Examples of Sahelian Book Collectors Over Two CenturiesShamil JeppiePart 4: Contextualising Orature and Traditionalists13 The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present dayMamadou Diawara14 The Next Generation: Young Griots’ Quest for AuthorityJan Jansen15 In Praise of History; History as PraiseKarin Barber16 From Essentialism to Pluralisms: New Directions in Precolonial West African History from the Oral History Archive at Fajara, the GambiaToby Green17 Dreamworlds: Cultural Narrative in Asante Visionary ExperienceThomas C. McCaskiePart 5: Projects, Texts, and Representations18 The Life of a Text: Carsten Niebuhr and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aġa’s Das innere von AfrikaCamille Lefebvre19 The Kano Chronicle RevisitedPaul E. Lovejoy20 Slavery or Death in Sokoto and Borno: Tactics, Legalities and SourcesMurray Last21 A Story of Exile, a Story in Exile: Louis Hunkanrin, Mauritania and ‘Un Forfait Colonial’ (Revisited)E. Ann McDougall22 Edmond Fortier (1862–1928): Photographer, Documentarian and Creator of Stereotypes in West AfricaDaniela MoreauAfterword: Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias’ Publications and InterviewPaulo Fernando de Moraes FariasInterpreting Sources of the African Past: An Interview with Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias byBenedetta Rossi