Lecture Cassandra Mark-Thiesen: Re-viewing early postindependence history journals from Africa
In the 1960s and 1970s, amid the optimism of decolonisation, new and 'reinvented' history journals, now largely under African leadership, were at the heart of scholarly and social renewal.
Published by universities and historical societies across the continent, these low-cost publications were printed to connect scientists with society. Their circulation was also intended to forge intellectual communities between former colonies and to mark out a space for Africa-based scholarship in the global arena.
The digital turn in global history has given rise to new and creative methodologies, while drawing attention to new types of historical sources, though critical enquiry is still needed. No longer relegated to dusty shelves in (more often than not) European and American library stacks, today a growing number of these postindependence history journals from Africa of the 1960s and 1970s can be found in digital repositories. Applying a close reading approach to the journals, her talk will foreground often invisible editorial labour to re-view the manner in which editors understood and expressed their role in this grand endeavour.
Practical
Date: 9 April
Time: 16:00
Place: IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance: Free admission, but please send an email to event@iisg.nl if you want to join.
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen leads the junior research group ‘African Knowledges and the History Publication’ at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth. Previously, she was a lecturer in Global & African History at the University of Basel. She is a 2016 – 2018 Marie Heim-Vögtlin Fellowship recipient (Swiss National Science Foundation). She is co-editor of the volume "The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa" (2021). She is author of "Mediators, Contract Men and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909" (2018). Her general research interests include African social and economic history, intellectual history, digital history and memory, as well as the history of inequality and globalisation.
