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On April 5, 2023, Political Scientist Abdourahmane Idrissa who is currently an Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellowship in Global African Studies at The Africa Institute was invited by New York University Abu Dhabi to speak on “Songhay: Empire, the World and Modernity,” to the students specializing in Arab Crossroads Studies, a flagship major that intersects Social Sciences and Humanities.
Idrissa obtained his doctorate at the University of Florida following research work on democratization and political Islam in the Sahel before developing expertise in the political economy of development in the course of a two-year postdoc at the universities of Oxford and Princeton. He is also a senior researcher at Leiden University’s African Studies Centre.
“The talk focused on three elements of my project: the question of sources for a narrative history of the Songhay Empire; the question of how to set Songhay and West Africa in a world-history perspective; and in relation to that, the meaning of the global shifts, in the sixteenth century, that birthed the modern world and, in a way, killed Songhay,” said Idrissa.
“I also highlighted the importance of griotic literature, not as empirical but as a cultural source such as values, ideas, concepts, ways of seeing the world, etc. for the history of the societies of the Sahel-Sudan, including Songhay,” he adds.
The talk being part of the course, ‘Arab Crossroads Studies,’ takes advantage of Abu Dhabi’s geographical location in the Arabian Peninsula, at the crossroads of the three continents of the Eastern hemisphere: Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Just like The Africa Institute’s mission, it uses this location to think through both the broader interactions of the Arab world with the surrounding regions, as well as an invitation to investigate the historical and contemporary religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the Arabic-speaking world.
The Africa Institute supports such engagements in collaboration with university communities that enable us to engage with young critical thinkers, and further stimulate the dialogue linked to social, cultural, and intellectual diversity of the African and Arab world as well as its neighbors.
On April 5, 2023, Political Scientist Abdourahmane Idrissa who is currently an Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellowship in Global African Studies at The Africa Institute was invited by New York University Abu Dhabi to speak on “Songhay: Empire, the World and Modernity,” to the students specializing in Arab Crossroads Studies, a flagship major that intersects Social Sciences and Humanities.
On April 5, 2023, Political Scientist Abdourahmane Idrissa who is currently an Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellowship in Global African Studies at The Africa Institute was invited by New York University Abu Dhabi to speak on “Songhay: Empire, the World and Modernity,” to the students specializing in Arab Crossroads Studies, a flagship major that intersects Social Sciences and Humanities.
Idrissa obtained his doctorate at the University of Florida following research work on democratization and political Islam in the Sahel before developing expertise in the political economy of development in the course of a two-year postdoc at the universities of Oxford and Princeton. He is also a senior researcher at Leiden University’s African Studies Centre.
“The talk focused on three elements of my project: the question of sources for a narrative history of the Songhay Empire; the question of how to set Songhay and West Africa in a world-history perspective; and in relation to that, the meaning of the global shifts, in the sixteenth century, that birthed the modern world and, in a way, killed Songhay,” said Idrissa.
“I also highlighted the importance of griotic literature, not as empirical but as a cultural source such as values, ideas, concepts, ways of seeing the world, etc. for the history of the societies of the Sahel-Sudan, including Songhay,” he adds.
The talk being part of the course, ‘Arab Crossroads Studies,’ takes advantage of Abu Dhabi’s geographical location in the Arabian Peninsula, at the crossroads of the three continents of the Eastern hemisphere: Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Just like The Africa Institute’s mission, it uses this location to think through both the broader interactions of the Arab world with the surrounding regions, as well as an invitation to investigate the historical and contemporary religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the Arabic-speaking world.
The Africa Institute supports such engagements in collaboration with university communities that enable us to engage with young critical thinkers, and further stimulate the dialogue linked to social, cultural, and intellectual diversity of the African and Arab world as well as its neighbors.
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