From the American Institute for Maghrib Studies:

The AIMS Annual Conference had many firsts this year. It was our first collaborative effort as we paired with our sister ORC the West African Rearch Association, WARA. It was the first conference where we received over 100 proposals, and it was our first three-day event. We had noteable attendees including Mary Ellen Lane, CAORC director, and our first Donna Lee Bowen Travel Awardee, Tara Deubel. Her research interests are highlighted in the latest AIMS newsletter, which you all should have received, and it is also available online on the AIMS website. Also on the website are the final conference program and a compilation of presenter absracts.

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Pillarisetti Sudhir writes on the American Historical Association Blog:

Curtin started his long teaching career as an assistant professor back at Swarthmore College. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here he teamed up with colleague Jan Vansina to help launch and develop the hitherto neglected field of African history, and started a department of African languages and literature (the first such department in the United States). With a series of pathbreaking publications such as The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, which raised new questions even as it set new standards for accurate cliometrics of a complex past, The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History, and The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850 (which received the AHA’s Schuyler Prize), Curtin made himself a name as a brilliant historian who broke away from the dominant Eurocentric models of historiography of other continents to create a critical and pioneering body of scholarship on Africa, the Atlantic world, the British empire, and comparative history. As if responding to the tug of the Atlantic (and perhaps a love of the sea rooted in his tenure with the Merchant Marines) reflected in his works, Curtin moved to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1975, where he became the Herbert Baxter Adams Professor of History.

In 2009, the Conference will specifically address the issue of access to manuscripts. Improving access to manuscripts through digitisation and electronic ordering and delivery systems whilst ensuring their proper long-term preservation is fundamental to the successful future study of the Islamic heritage. Presently, technologies are available that have the potential to transform the way manuscripts are studied; however, the access these technologies can allow is counterbalanced by collection holders’ concerns regarding their legal rights and the financial sustainability of their organisations. During the Fifth Islamic Manuscript Conference these vital issues will be discussed by our invited speakers and selected paper presenters.

Migration is a rich and controversial field, relevant for current political, sociological and media debates. In a globalized world, characterized by increasing cultural diversity and societal complexity, discussions about migration, integration, assimilation and (inter)cultural identity, call for a nuanced and in-depth discussion of the way in which people with different cultural backgrounds (try to and have to) live together and shape their cultural self-understanding. A comprehensive and thorough insight in these matters asks for a study of their long term development, and thus for a multifaceted historical perspective. The acknowledgment of this necessity forms the starting point and scientific backbone of the conference.

Alors que Nouadhibou vient de vivre son premier siècle d’existence, aucun ouvrage n’est encore dédié à la ville. Les articles mêmes sont rares. Ce projet de publication ambitionne de combler cette lacune. Nous nous efforcerons de rassembler 15 à 20 articles en français, de chercheurs issus de disciplines et de pays divers sur des aspects multiples de la réalité urbaine de la seconde ville mauritanienne. Partant de travaux de recherche menés actuellement dans le cadre du programme PACOBA , Mohammed Said ould Ahmedou, historien et directeur du Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches Historiques à l’Université de Nouakchott, et Benjamin Acloque, anthropologue rattaché au Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale du Collège de France, chargés de la direction de la publication, cherchent à élargir le panel des contributeurs et les sujets abordés. La sortie du livre est espérée en 2010.

Contemporary conflicts produce zones of war, violence, displacement, and resettlement in which social relations, livelihoods, and community structures undergo transformations. Forms of identity are disrupted and reconfigured within families, ethnicities, and nations. In short or long-term conflict situations, actors also demonstrate flexibility, innovation, and solidarity by strategically employing sociocultural resources in response to emerging community needs and changing realities. Community leaders and international actors, including governments, civil society, and humanitarian aid organizations, often seek to seek to influence and shape those responses on local and global scales. This panel examines the ways in which conflict and post-conflict settings engender new forms of social organization, participation, cultural production and communication and the broader implications of these adaptive strategies for communities living with and recovering from recent experiences of conflict.

Contributions are sought (and encouraged) from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Although we strongly encourage graduate students, we also welcome submissions from undergraduates, professionals, post-doctoral researchers, lecturers, professors, activists, and practitioners. Abstracts or descriptions of the presentations should be no longer than 250 words and should include contact information, name, mailing address, telephone number, affiliation, department, and email address. Please respond no later than March 5, 2009. The ASA deadline for completion of the panel proposal including all membership and conference registrations for participating members is March 15.

Both ‘border theory’ and border studies as a field owe much of their cross-disciplinary origins and development to scholars of the American Southwest. By the late 1990s, spurred by the rapid development of the European Union, Europeanist scholars had contributed not only a wealth of empirical studies but also significant theoretical insights and concepts to border studies. What then of Africa, the peripheral poor relation of the area studies’ family? African borders have often been seen as incomplete or exceptional in relation to mainstream border theory – due to their supposed porosity, negotiability, arbitrariness, and lack of impact on popularly rooted social identities. Increasingly, however, Africanist scholars are making two arguments concerning the supposed exceptionalism of African borders. Firstly, many African borders are not indeed as irrelevant, porous and arbitrary as widely assumed. Secondly, many of the characteristics of African borders, in their diversity, are also present elsewhere. With increasingly global theorising, the US-Mexico and European borders may well turn out to be the exceptions to the global norm. African borders will contribute to helping us illuminate the functioning and meaning of borders in the global context. It is this process of bringing theory into Africa and
Africa into theory which guides the present conference.

The Islamic Manuscript Association is pleased to announce that the Fifth Islamic Manuscript Conference will be held at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, UK from 24-26 July 2009. It will be hosted by the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation and the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.

The Association invites submissions of papers for its annual conference on topics related to the care, management, and study of Islamic manuscripts. In 2009, the Conference will specifically address the issue of access to manuscripts. Improving access to manuscripts through digitisation and electronic ordering and delivery systems whilst ensuring their proper long-term preservation is fundamental to the successful future study of the Islamic heritage. Presently, technologies are available that have the potential to transform the way manuscripts are studied; however, the access these technologies can allow is counterbalanced by collection holders’ concerns regarding their legal rights and the financial sustainability of their organisations. During the Fifth Islamic Manuscript Conference these vital issues will be discussed by our invited speakers and selected paper presenters.

This is a revised call for papers and participation for an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Slavery, migration, and Contemporary Bondage in Africa’, to take place at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, Hull, United Kingdom. This conference will explore linkages between the history of slavery and migration in Africa and contemporary forms of bondage, such as child labour, ‘classical’ slavery, child soldiers, descent based discrimination, and human trafficking and the exploitation of migrants. Eight travel bursaries are available for early career scholars based in and/or from Africa.