Bologna | 14-15 maggio | Contextualizing Piety Movements: Islam in West Africa and Beyond

Segnaliamo il seminario del professor Robert Launay della Northwestern University di Chicago che si terrà il 14 e il 15 maggio (ore 9-18), presso la Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose di Bologna (via San Vitale 114). La locandina dell’evento è disponibile qui.

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Contextualizing Piety Movements: Islam in West Africa and Beyond
Since the 1980s, a surge in Islamic piety, especially women and youth, has attracted the attention of scholars. This seminar will examine this literature and attempt to elaborate a broader theoretical approach which contextualizes the presence, first by examining changes in Islamic worship in West Africa since its arrival in the ninth century, then by comparing Islamic movements to contemporary developments in other religions in West Africa, and finally by attempting to sketch as broad an approach as possible by comparing piety movements in fourteenth century Western Europe.

Robert Launay (PhD Cambridge) is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University. He has conducted field work among the Dyula, a Muslim minority in northern Côte d’Ivoire. He is the author of several books, including Traders Without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities;

Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town; Islamic Education in Africa: Writing Boards and Blackboards (edited volume); and, most recently Savages, Romans, and Despots, Thinking about Others from Montaigne to Herder, as well as numerous articles.