Author: Rodima-Taylor
New Federal Grant Award: Readers in Ajami
The team of Ajami scholars at Boston University, led by Professor Fallou Ngom, has been awarded a three-year grant of $178,900 by the U.S. Department of Education to develop specialized Ajami readers in Hausa, Wolof, and Mandinka (three major African languages with rich written Ajami literatures) with a multimedia companion website. The Readers in Ajami […]
Rodima-Taylor Published Work on Digital Infrastructures
Dr. Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Project Manager of NEH Ajami, published several articles recently focusing on the role of digital technologies in mediating local and global distributions of power. She co-edited a special issue “FinTech in Africa” (with Langley, in Journal of Cultural Economy) and authored an individual article on the fintech political economy of self-help. Her […]
Digitizing Past and Present: Our Geddes Digital Humanities Team
By Mark Lewis and Daivi Rodima-Taylor The Geddes Language Center of Boston University is one of the integral partners of our NEH-funded Research Project on Ajami Literature and the Expansion of Literacy and Islam: The Case of West Africa. The Geddes Language Center is a full-service language learning facility dedicated to providing an extensive humanities […]
Fallou Ngom’s African Studies Review Distinguished Lecture
NEH Ajami project director Fallou Ngom’s African Studies Review Distinguished Lecture “Beyond Orality: Non-Europhone Sources and African Studies in the 21st Century” can now be viewed here.
Our Scholars at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting
The African Studies Association 62nd Annual Meeting, “Being, Belonging and Becoming in Africa,” took place in Boston, MA, from November 21-23, 2019, in Boston Marriott Copley Place. The Annual Meeting featured presentations and contributions by several of our NEH Ajami Research Project scholars. NEH Ajami project director Fallou Ngom was chosen to present this year’s […]
David Robinson on Ethnohistorical Fieldwork in West Africa
Our project member Dr. David Robinson describes his experience preparing and carrying out interviews in Senegal and Mali in the linked article “Interviewing, Intermediaries and Documents: Senegal and Mali,” published in Mande Studies (vol. 20, 2018). He emphasizes the importance of his assistants or intermediaries for the choice of informants and the conduct of the […]
Boston University Libraries Uploaded the World’s Largest Digital Collection by Mande Scholars
By Eleni Castro, Fallou Ngom, Daivi Rodima-Taylor Boston University scholars and digital collections experts recently completed uploading the largest to date digital collection of Mande scholars’ work in the world. The project EAP 1042, funded by the British Library/ARCADIA focused on the archives of Mandinka scholars of Casamance, Senegal. The BU team digitized over 18,000 […]
The Social Life of African Ajami: Connecting the Grassroots, Mediating the Mundane
By Daivi Rodima-Taylor, Mustapha H. Kurfi, and Fallou Ngom Grassroots Ajami literacy has been historically high in the communities of West Africa. While often viewed through the lens of its religious historical origins, it is increasingly evident that the use of Ajami scripts in a variety of African languages extends far beyond religious and educational […]