Events & Issues
– Trends in Academic Books Published in the Humanities and Other Fields
Within the humanities, the monograph is still very much the “gold standard” for scholarly achievement, and thus trends in the publication of scholarly books serve as a particularly important barometer of the field’s health. The graphs below depict the volume of new titles published in the humanities relative to other fields. They show that the number of new humanities titles is on the rise and that such titles represent almost half of all academic books published each year.
– Findings and Trends
The number of new academic humanities titles published in North America increased slightly from 2012 to 2013, rising from 51,789 to 54,273—the highest level in five years of available data (Indicator IV-12a). The number of humanities titles published in 2013 was 15% higher than the low point in the available data of 47,124 new titles (in 2010).
In 2013, the humanities accounted for 44.9% of all new academic titles published in North America—a two percentage point increase from 2012 but slightly lower than the field’s share in 2009 (45.1%).
The humanities represent a substantial share of the new academic titles published (Indicator IV-12aa). In comparison to the more than 54,000 new titles published in the humanities in 2013, fewer than 14,000 new titles were published in each of the next closest fields—the behavioral and social sciences (13,848) and the natural sciences (13,450).
Read more on the story in this link: https://www.humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatordoc.aspx?i=88
– Building a Model of Sustainable Education in Senegal
In the streets of Senegal, thousands of young boys beg for food and money. Known as “talibés,” the Arabic word for “pupil,” or “disciple,” children between the ages of 6 and 17 wander the city streets for up to 12 hours each day, barely clothed, inadequately fed, in poor health, and living in harsh conditions. They deliver the money to a “marabout” spiritual teacher to pay for teachings that they never receive. Unregulated schools can be platforms for exploitation and the children are beaten if they fail to reach set quotas as “payment” for their fosterage.
Read more on the story in this link:
http://www.upenn.edu/spotlights/building-model-sustainable-education-senegal?utm_source=Primary&utm_campaign=04141126de-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3777f2ca8f-04141126de-44444413
– African Orphans Learn Mandarin, Buddhism and Kung Fu
Nhlangano, Swaziland – Amitofo Care Centres, founded by Venerable Master Hui Li, a Buddhist monk from Taiwan, is taking in orphans and vulnerable children from several countries in southern Africa. Li first visited the African continent in 1992 and was struck by the children left behind by parents who died of HIV/Aids. He decided to devote all of his time and energy into setting up orphanages, schools and clinics for the most vulnerable. The first centre set up in Malawi 12 years ago houses almost 500 children. There are also centres in Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia, with many more in the planning stages.
Read more on the story in this link:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/10/african-orphans-learn-mandarin-buddhism-kung-fu-171019082509567.html?mc_cid=b045a2d9fb&mc_eid=fab0566d63
– ISITA Welcomes New Director
By Rebecca Shereikis October 20, 2017
Northwestern University has appointed political scientist Zekeria Ahmed Salem, political science, as director of the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA). “I am deeply humbled and honored to come to Northwestern University and to be appointed as ISITA’s Director,” says Ahmed Salem, who arrived October 5. “Northwestern pioneered the field of African Studies in the United States, and in a sense, ISITA could not have been created elsewhere. The Institute has been a driving force behind the emergence over the past two decades of the interdisciplinary study of Islam in Africa as a vibrant area of research in the social sciences.”
Ahmed Salem specializes in Islam and Muslim politics in Africa in comparative perspective. His research engages critical debates about religion and politics, especially the interconnections between the state and religious authority, identity politics, Islamic knowledge, and political power in contemporary African societies. Based on long-term fieldwork in the northwestern African nation of Mauritania, his published work sheds light on the religious formation of the postcolonial state as well as on the intersection of Islam, ethnicity, race, and social hierarchy.
Read more on the story in this link:
https://research.northwestern.edu/news/isita-welcomes-new-director
NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
– Entrepreneurship in Africa
[ريادة الأعمال التجارية في أفريقيا]
Author: (Editors) Akinyinka Akinyoade, Ton Dietz and Chibuike Uche
Historically, entrepreneurs have always played a central role in the development of nation states. Aside from rentier states, which depend extensively on the availability of mineral resource rents, most economically prosperous nations in the world have strong, innovative and competitive business enterprises and entrepreneurs as the bedrock of their economic development and prosperity. It was arguably because of the above historical fact that the World Bank in 1989 declared that entrepreneurs will play a central role in transforming African economies. Chapters in this book contribute to our understanding of the theory, structure and practice of entrepreneurship in diverse African countries. Case studies examined include: African multinational banks and businesses, female entrepreneurs, culture and entrepreneurship, finance and entrepreneurship and SMEs.
Publisher: Brill Publishers, 2017
– Cheikh Mourabi Khawsou Dramé : un pèlerin éternel
[الشيخ مرابي خوسو درامي: عابد في هيام أزلي]
Author: Cheikh Balla Nar Dieng
Written in French and English, this book highlights the intellectual trajectory and rich life of Sheikh Mourabi Khawsou Dramé, a religious leader. In a lifespan of a century, he has been associated with the legacy of two great saints who spearheaded two reformist movements that are nowadays among the most dynamic Sufi orders in West Africa. One is Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba (founder of Mouridism) and the other is Sheikh Hama Houllah (founder of Hamallisme). Sheikh Mourabi Khawsou Dramé was a scholar and a saint who served as a gateway to tradition, discipline and scholarship.
Publisher: Dakar : L’Harmattan Sénégal, [2016]
– Marcus Simaika: Father of Coptic Archaeology
[ماركوس سيمايكا: أب علم الآثار لدى الأقباط]
Author: Nevine Henein
Marcus Pasha Simaika (1864–1944) was born to a prominent Coptic family on the eve of the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. From a young age, he developed a passion for Coptic heritage and devoted his life to shedding light on centuries of Christian Egyptian history that had been neglected by ignorance or otherwise belittled and despised. He was not a professional archaeologist, an excavator, or a specialist scholar of Coptic language and literature. Rather, his achievement lies in his role as a visionary administrator who used his status to pursue relentlessly his dream of founding a Coptic Museum and preserving endangered monuments. During his lengthy career, first as a civil servant, then as a legislator and member of the Coptic community council, he maneuvered endlessly between the patriarch and the church hierarchy, the Coptic community council, the British authorities, and the government to bring them together in his fight to save Coptic heritage. This fascinating biography draws upon Simaika’s unpublished memoirs as well as on other documents and photographs from the Simaika family archive to deepen our understanding of several important themes of modern Egyptian history: the development of Coptic archaeology and heritage studies, Egyptian–British interactions during the colonial and semi-colonial eras, shifting balances in the interaction of clergymen and the lay Coptic community, and the ever-sensitive evolution of relations between Copts and their Muslim countrymen.
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2017
– An Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo
[دراسة إيثنوغرافية لضريح مرتبط بطقوسات فودو في جنوب توغو]
Author (s): Montgomery, Wayne State University and Christian Vannier, University of Michigan-Flint
In this book, Eric Montgomery and Christian Vannier provide an ethnographically informed text on the cultural meanings and practices surrounding the gods and metaphysics of Vodu, as they relate to daily life in an ethnic Ewe fishing community on the coast of southern Togo. The authors approach this spirit possession and medicinal order through “shrine ethnography,” understanding shrines as parts of sacred landscapes that are ecological, economic, political, and social. Giving voice to practitioners and situating shrines and Vodu itself into the history and political economy of the region make this text pertinent to the social changes and global relevance of Millennial Africa.
Publisher: Brill Publishers, 2017
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