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On October 18, 2023, The Africa Institute hosted Professor Hannah Elsisi, who presented her talk titled “Genres of Captivity: Gender, Punishment, and Historiography in the African Post-Colony,” examining the role of prisons in postcolonial African and Middle Eastern history.
While narratives of these regions focus on power dynamics, sovereignty, and freedom movements, Professor Elsisi highlighted the significance of prisons.She noted that “prisons do not end politics or bodies”; they serve as sites of subject formation, power contestation, and cultural production. This view reimagines prisons as essential spaces in African and Middle Eastern history, alongside traditional anchors like markets, coffeehouses, and mosques.
“Understanding the influence of carcerality is key to unlocking the complexities of our shared history and shaping our future,” said Professor Elsisi, a historian specializing in North Africa and South-West Asia, with a particular focus on the ‘Global Mangrove Archipelago.
Her lecture posed questions about prisons’ functions, impact on social and political orders, and their role in shaping political subjectivities, networks, cultural production, and disciplinary regimes. She emphasized that “carcerality is productive: of self, society, and state. Of history, too.” By examining postcolonial technologies of governance and their implications, she urged a reconsideration of the origin stories of penal history and global state and subject formation.
Professor Elsisi also shared insights into her academic journey and ongoing projects. She serves as an Assistant Professor of History and Gender Studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi, and is a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College in the Department of Political Economy. Her academic journey includes a Ph.D. in History from Merton College, Oxford University, in 2020. Her thesis received recognition from prestigious organizations.
She is also working on upcoming projects, including two books scheduled for release in 2024: ‘Lovers in the Citadel: Prisons, Gender, and Other Architectures of Subjection in Egypt‘ (Stanford UP) and ‘Behind the Sun: Prison Writing and Abolition in an Egyptian Century‘ (Verso). Additionally, she’s also working on a new project that encompasses a documentary film (‘Mangle’), a compilation album (‘African Intelligence’), an exhibition (‘Mangue Bit’), and a global history book, ‘Chromosthesisa: Sonic Rights, Labour, and Technology in the Global Mangrove Archipelago.
The seminar was moderated by Faisal Garba Muhammed, Associate Professor of Sociology, Migration, and Mobility at The Africa Institute.
Through events like this seminar, The Africa Institute continues its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
On October 18, 2023, The Africa Institute hosted Professor Hannah Elsisi, who presented her talk titled “Genres of Captivity: Gender, Punishment, and Historiography in the African Post-Colony,” examining the role of prisons in postcolonial African and Middle Eastern history.
On October 18, 2023, The Africa Institute hosted Professor Hannah Elsisi, who presented her talk titled “Genres of Captivity: Gender, Punishment, and Historiography in the African Post-Colony,” examining the role of prisons in postcolonial African and Middle Eastern history.
While narratives of these regions focus on power dynamics, sovereignty, and freedom movements, Professor Elsisi highlighted the significance of prisons.She noted that “prisons do not end politics or bodies”; they serve as sites of subject formation, power contestation, and cultural production. This view reimagines prisons as essential spaces in African and Middle Eastern history, alongside traditional anchors like markets, coffeehouses, and mosques.
“Understanding the influence of carcerality is key to unlocking the complexities of our shared history and shaping our future,” said Professor Elsisi, a historian specializing in North Africa and South-West Asia, with a particular focus on the ‘Global Mangrove Archipelago.
Her lecture posed questions about prisons’ functions, impact on social and political orders, and their role in shaping political subjectivities, networks, cultural production, and disciplinary regimes. She emphasized that “carcerality is productive: of self, society, and state. Of history, too.” By examining postcolonial technologies of governance and their implications, she urged a reconsideration of the origin stories of penal history and global state and subject formation.
Professor Elsisi also shared insights into her academic journey and ongoing projects. She serves as an Assistant Professor of History and Gender Studies at New York University, Abu Dhabi, and is a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College in the Department of Political Economy. Her academic journey includes a Ph.D. in History from Merton College, Oxford University, in 2020. Her thesis received recognition from prestigious organizations.
She is also working on upcoming projects, including two books scheduled for release in 2024: ‘Lovers in the Citadel: Prisons, Gender, and Other Architectures of Subjection in Egypt‘ (Stanford UP) and ‘Behind the Sun: Prison Writing and Abolition in an Egyptian Century‘ (Verso). Additionally, she’s also working on a new project that encompasses a documentary film (‘Mangle’), a compilation album (‘African Intelligence’), an exhibition (‘Mangue Bit’), and a global history book, ‘Chromosthesisa: Sonic Rights, Labour, and Technology in the Global Mangrove Archipelago.
The seminar was moderated by Faisal Garba Muhammed, Associate Professor of Sociology, Migration, and Mobility at The Africa Institute.
Through events like this seminar, The Africa Institute continues its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
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