Race and Racism in Africa and the Middle East
Panelists include:
Dr. Khaled Esseissah, Assistant Teaching Professor, African Studies Program, Georgetown University
Dr. Esseissah specializes in modern African history, with a special focus on the social, intellectual, and religious initiatives of African Muslims. His current book project concerns the social transformations associated with the abolition of slavery in Mauritania, with a focus on the recent history of the Harāṭīn community and its diaspora. The Harāṭīn diaspora originated and developed out of the trans-Saharan slave trade with the dispersion of sub-Saharan populations across North and West African regions. In this project, he aims to show how Harāṭīn socio-political actions over the past hundred years have changed their status in northwest African hierarchies, and how their engagement in religious practices has strengthened their sense of community and political visibility. He also illuminates the growth of Harāṭīn Muslim consciousness and to analyze interconnections between religious practice and assertions of social equality.
Dr. Eve M. Troutt Powell, History Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Troutt Powell teaches the history of the modern Middle East and the history of slavery in the Nile Valley and the Ottoman Empire at University of Pennsylvania. As a cultural historian, she emphasizes the exploration of literature and film in her courses. She is the author of A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain and the Mastery of the Sudan and the co-editor, with John Hunwick, of The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam . Her most recent book is Tell This in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement in Egypt, Sudan and the Late Ottoman Empire. Troutt Powell is now working on a book about the visual culture of slavery in the Middle East which will explore the painting and photography about African and Circassian slavery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is also a professor in the department of Africana Studies.
Trishula Patel, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Georgetown University
Patel is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Georgetown university, currently working on her dissertation, “Becoming Zimbabwean: A History of Indians in Zimbabwe, 1890 to 1980.” Her research interests include the history of race and segregation in the British Empire and the South Asian diaspora in Africa. She has written extensively on South Asian migration and integration in African nations. Patel received an MS in Journalism from Columbia University and an MA in World History from University of Pennsylvania and was a Michael and Ceil Pulitzer African fellow at Columbia University. Patel spent 2018-2019 in Zimbabwe and London as a Fulbright-Hayes scholar.
This event will be moderated by Dr. Judith Tucker, History Professor, Georgetown University.
“Race and Racism in Africa and the Middle East” is part of the nationwide #ScholarStrike to halt academic business as usual and to instead host teach-ins on police violence and racism on September 8 and 9, 2020 in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
This event will be recorded. By joining this event you consent to Georgetown University using video and photos of you taken during the event in its social media and promotional materials. Please direct any questions or request for accommodation to mcf77@georgetown.edu.