CERIS Fall Book Discussion for Educators: Paths of Accommodation by David Robison

Facilitated by Dr. Jean-Jacque Ngor Sène, Associate Professor of History and Cultural Studies, Chatham University “La République Française,” has been, for the last hundred years or so, a Muslim Global Power. The French, more particularly in Modern Times, have arguably stood in World History as the very top incubator-nation of theories, from that of the “Noble Savage” falsely attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to that of (Colonial Cultural) “Assimilation” formalized by, say, Arthur Girault, onto that of “Deconstruction” in post WWII times with Brother Jacques Derrida. One such new theory out of the Hexagon of Fading Glory is the controversial nébuleuse known as l’Islamo-Gauchisme (Islamo-Leftism???) fathered by Pierre-André Taguieff in 2002 from what we think we know. David Robinson’s Paths of Accommodation, Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880 -1921 (Ohio University Press) straddles the tropes of Negotiation, Cooperation, Sabotage, Resistance, Jihad, and more importantly, for our chosen focus, Knowledge and Power Crystallized into (Symbolic) Sociopolitical Capital. Dr. Sène, will lead a discussion focused on the diversity of Arabic sources, archival sources from the colonial registries, oral ethnographic documents, and powerful folkloric testimonies from the early 1900s onwards. The book is a unique springboard for a re-evaluation of (Muslim) Civil Societies’ agency against neo-imperial forces of mass exploitation/oppression in our own times. This discussion is cosponsored by the African Studies Center and the European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and Chatham University. Act 48 Credits available for PA teachers. For more information:https://www.cerisnet.pitt.edu/event/ceris-fall-book-discussion-for-educa...