Notes on Contributors X
Introduction. Thick Contextualisation: Interpreting West African Landscapes, Sources, and Projects 1
Benedetta Rossi and Toby Green
Part 1
Archaeology and Material Landscapes
1
All that Glitters is not Gold: Facing the Myths of Ancient Trade between North and Sub-Saharan Africa 25
Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita
2
African Archaeology and the ‘Chalk Line Effect’: A Consideration of Māli City and Siğilmāsa 46
François-Xavier Fauvelle
3
The ‘Pays Dô’ and the Origins of the Empire of Mali 63
Kevin C. MacDonald, Nikolas Gestrich, Seydou Camara, Daouda Keita
Part 2
Imagined Landscapes and Moral Topographies
4
Imitation and Creativity in the Establishment of Islam in Oyo 91
Insa Nolte
5
Fante ‘Origins’: The Problematic Evidence of ‘Tradition’ 116
Robin Law
6
The Unknowns of the Modern Era in the Greater Western Sahara: Reassessing the Territorial Location of the Wlād Dlaym (15th–17th Centuries) 135
Benjamin Acloque
7
The Almoravids and Ašʿarism: Regarding the Work of al-Murādī al-Ḥaḍramī 156
Abdel Wedoud Ould-Cheikh
Part 3
8
Inscribing the Now and the Hereafter: First Writings in Early African History 181
Ghislaine Lydon
9
New Reinventions of the Sahel: Reflections on the Taʾrīḫ Genre in the Timbuktu Historiographical Production, Seventeenth to Twentieth Centuries 201
Mauro Nobili
10
Calibrating the Scholarship of Timbuktu 220
Charles C. Stewart
11
Rethinking the Place of Timbuktu in the Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa 239
Bruce S. Hall
12
Two Examples of Sahelian Book Collectors Over Two Centuries 259
Shamil Jeppie
Part 4
Contextualising Orature and Traditionalists
13
The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present day 277
Mamadou Diawara
14
The Next Generation: Young Griots’ Quest for Authority 296
Jan Jansen
15
In Praise of History; History as Praise 312
Karin Barber
16
From Essentialism to Pluralisms: New Directions in Precolonial West African History from the Oral History Archive at Fajara, The Gambia 332
Toby Green
17
Thomas C. McCaskie
Part 5
Projects, Texts, and Representations
18
The Life of a Text: Carsten Niebuhr and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aġa’s Das innere von Afrika 379
Camille Lefebvre
19
The Kano Chronicle Revisited 400
Paul E. Lovejoy
20
Slavery or Death in Sokoto and Borno: Tactics, Legalities and Sources 422
Murray Last
21
A Story of Exile, a Story in Exile: Louis Hunkanrin, Mauritania and ‘Un Forfait Colonial’ (Revisited) 443
E. Ann McDougall
22
Edmond Fortier (1862–1928): Photographer, Documentarian and Creator of Stereotypes in West Africa 464
Daniela Moreau
Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias’ Publications 492
Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
Interview: Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects 498
Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias and Benedetta Rossi
Index 517