Organizers:

• Yitzhak Hen – Israel Institute for Advanced Studies
• François-Xavier Fauvelle – Collège de France and French Research Center in Jerusalem
• Sarah Stroumsa – The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

 

Speakers:

• Alebachew Belay Birru – Debre Berhan University
• Marco Cristini – Università degli Studi di Firenze
• Haggai Erlich – Tel Aviv University
• Mehdi Ghouirgate – University of Bordeaux-Montaigne
• Steven Kaplan – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Samantha Kelly – Rutgers University
• Bar Kribus – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Daniel Kumah – University of Ghana
• Judith Olszowy-Schlanger — Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes & University of Oxford
• Guy Ron-Gilboa – Bar Ilan University
• Youval Rotman — Tel Aviv University
• Philip Slavin – University of Stirling / IIAS
• Oded Zinger – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 

Among the various "turns" that have occurred in historical studies in recent decades, the "global turn" has enabled the integration of African societies into the map of a medieval world characterized by multiple interconnected "provinces". This new shift could, in fact, be seen as a return to the medieval world-view : In medieval representations African societies were part of an Afro-Eur-Asian network encompassing pilgrims and merchants.

Through this network slaves, commodities and raw materials were exchanged and it enabled sharing political and urban models, as well as tastes. The international workshop will provide an opportunity to explore recent advances and perspectives regarding African societies and their interconnectedness with others. It will be held in Jerusalem, a city that had, in the Middle Ages, a central importance in the geographical representations of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities.

While the workshop is centered on the Middle Ages, it also aims to examine the implications of this pre-modern past in the longue durée.  The workshop will thus engage Israeli historians of Africa, and pay tribute to the significant contributions made by figures like Nehemia Levtzion (1935-2003), who played a leading role in the field of African history.
 
Depending, of course, on the lecture proposed, we think of having panels on various aspects of the African networks, of material goods (gold, salt, glass), of human movement (slaves, pilgrims, soldiers, merchants, scholars), centered on major cultural hubs (Mali, Sijilmassa, Ethiopia, trans-Saharan relationship, etc.) or on the changes in religious landscape (conversions, religious co-habitation, texts and religious associations). 

An international workshop convened by François-Xavier Fauvelle, Sarah Stroumsa and Yitzhak Hen at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, Israel, 13-16 January 2025, with the support of the French Research Center in Jerusalem.