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Madina Thiam



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Contact Information

Email    mthiam@ucla.edu
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I work on Mali and the Sahel, with broad interests in African migrations and the connected social and intellectual histories of Islam across the Atlantic and Saharan worlds.

In addition, I'm a member of the Projet Archives des Femmes, a Bamako-based digitization project. We are collecting, safeguarding, and creating a public archive of papers of Malian women involved in the 1950s movement for independence, and post-colonial feminist activism. I'm also part of a working-group on contemporary migrations in southern Africa, under the direction of E. Tendayi Achiume. Lastly, I host a podcast on the New Books Network, and served as co-editor-in-chief of Ufahamu: a Journal of African Studies.

Prospective students: feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Currently teaching: From Mecca to Jamaica: Global Histories of Muslim West Africa

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Field of Study

Africa

Subfield

Islam
Mali and the Sahel
Black Women’s History
Saharan and Atlantic Worlds
Slavery, Race and Capitalism
Mobility, Migrations, and African Diaspora                     

Research

My dissertation, entitled "From Mecca to Jamaica: Mobility, Connectivity, and Freedom in the Sahel, 1804-1960," probes historical intersections between freedom, mobility, Islam and political change in the Sahel, adopting a global and micro-historical approach. It draws on research I conducted in Mali, Senegal, France, England, Ireland, and Jamaica.

Publications

Peer-reviewed

Book Chapters and Other Adademic Writings

  • “Struggle, Neglect and Archives,” Council for the Development of the Social Sciences in Africa (CODESRIA) Bulletin no. 5&6 Special Issue (2020), 21-23.
  • "Nicholas Said, étonnant voyageur." In Sahara, mondes connectés, edited by Sophie Caratini, Charles Grémont, Céline Lesourd et Olivier Schinz, 75-9. Paris: Gallimard, 2019. 

Reviews

  • Review of Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith. Aḥmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa, by Mauro Nobili. Islamic Africa XI (forthcoming).
  • Review of Mali Blues, by Gregor Lutz. Research Africa Reviews 2, no. 2 (2018): 46-48.
  • Review of Etre Etudiant au Mali, by Boubacar Sangaré. Ufahamu: a Journal of African Studies 40, no. 2 (2018): 179-182.

Media and Public Engagement

Grants and Awards

(Selected)

Conference Presentations

    Invited Lectures

    • 2020 UIUC, "Seeking Freedom in the Sahel: Transnational Politics, Islamic Networks and Memory in Colonial Mopti" (Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA), 'Timbuktu Talks' Series
    • 2019 CSULB, "Women and Decolonization in Francophone West Africa" (Long Beach, CA, USA)
    • 2019 UWI-Mona, “Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq and the Muslim Sahel in Translation” (Kingston, Jamaica) 

    Conferences and Workshops

    • 2020 African Studies Association Meeting: "After the Caliphate: Mopti, US-RDA, and Mahammadu Caam's Fuutanke Archipelago (1940s-1960s)" (Washington, DC, USA; accepted and postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19)
    • 2020 American Historical Association Meeting: “'Absolutely and utterly free.' Kinship, Muslim Education and Emancipation between Jamaica and the Middle Niger, c. 1790-1853" (New York, NY, USA)
    • 2019 Africa, Globalization and The Muslim Worlds Conference: “‘Beyond Timbuktu’: Sahelian Networks and Texts in Pre-Emancipation Jamaica” (Cambridge, MA, USA)
    • 2019 Forum Transregionale Studien "Rethinking Refuge" Workshop: "Continuities of Statelessness in Southern Africa” (Berlin, Germany)
    • 2019 Luskin Center for History and Policy Fellows Seminar: "Developing a New Approach to Migration and Policy-Making in Africa" (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
    • 2018 Global Africa and Ethnographies of Interconnection Workshop: "Using 19th-century Sahelian Narratives to Write Global History" (Cornell, NY, USA)
    • 2017 International Conference of the Dakar Institute of African Studies: "African Men of Letters, Atlantic Slavery, and the Intellectual History of the Sahel, 19th and 20th c." (Dakar, Senegal)
    • 2017 ULCA HGSA Conference: "Empire State of Mind: Best of Intentions, Unsolicited Interventions, and the 2012 Crisis in Mali" (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
    • 2016 African Studies Association Conference: "A Trail of Scented Salams: Migrating and Settling along the Tarīq-al-Sūdān in the 19th and 20th centuries" (Washington DC, USA)
    • 2016 University of Bern 'Transpositions' Summer School: "Westerners along the Nile: West African Muslims in Sudan in the 19th and 20th centuries" (Kandersteg, Switzerland)

    Media and Public Engagement

    • 2021 History Hit Documentary: 'Pinches of Salt and Gold. Uncovering Mansa Musa's Story' (London, UK)
    • 2020 Africa is a Country AIAC Talk on the protests in Bamako
    • 2019 Le Monde Documentary: 'PANAFRICAIN.E.S: Cheikh Anta Diop, l'historien révolutionnaire' with Coumba Kane, (Paris, France)
    • 2019 NationWide FM Radio Interview: ‘Talking History’ with Prof. Verene Shepherd (Kingston, Jamaica)
    • 2017 UNESCO World Heritage Young Professionals Forum: “Memory: Lost and Recovered Heritage” (Warsaw & Krakow, Poland) [Photos] [Video] [Video]
    • 2016 UCLA Futures of History Conference: "The Futures of History: What Do We See and Envision?" (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

    Advisors

    Ghislaine Lydon (Chair); 
    Robin D.G. Kelley; 
    Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré; 
    Minayo Nasiali; 
    Andrew Apter 

    Degrees

    C. Phil., History, UCLA,  2018
    M.A., History, UCLA, 2017
    B.A., History and International Affairs, Economics Minor, George Washington University, 2012