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African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church – Elizabeth A. Foster

La Maison Française (NYU) 16 Washington Mews, New York City

African Catholic (Harvard University Press, 2019) by Elizabeth A. Foster examines how French imperialists and the Africans they ruled imagined the religious future of French sub-Saharan Africa in the years just before and after decolonization. The story encompasses the political transition to independence, Catholic contributions to black intellectual currents, and efforts to alter the church hierarchy to create an authentically “African” church. Elizabeth…

Arabic Translation at the End of Imperial Spain (1714-1814)

Casa Hispanica Columbia 612 W 116th St, New York

Speaker: Claire Gilbert (University of Saint Louis) Respondent: TBA Moderators: Pier Mattia Tommasino (Columbia University, Italian) and Seth Kimmel (Columbia University, LAIC) This paper studies how scholars and politicians of the Ilustración relied on medieval precedents in Spanish Arabism for philological and political projects. Those precedents were related to the politics of belonging and exclusion which shaped early modern Spanish society. Their memory and…