Maghrib in Past & Present | Podcasts
Education
In 801 CE, an elephant named Abu’l Abbas landed in Portovenere, Italy from Ifriqiya. According to The Royal Frankish Annals, he was as a gift from Caliph Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne. Although he appears regularly in any discussion of the period, Abu’l Abbas, like many other animals, remains a cipher. For world history, he tells a story about the circuits of diplomacy and trade that linked the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean or fuels more speculation on the relationship of Holy Roman Christendom to the Islamic Caliphate. For art history, he is translated into the ivories, oliphants and imagery of elephants in the European imagination. Or else, he finds his proper province in children’s fables.
In this podcast, Dr. Radhika Subramaniam, Director of The Sheila Johnson Center and Associate Professor of Art History & Design at the New School / Parsons School of Design reconstructs a plausible tale of this Asian elephant’s travels, which would undoubtedly have been in the company of a mahout or handler, who, although unacknowledged and unnamed, probably accompanied him from India. This podcast is adapted from a longer work-in-progress that is part animal biography, part migration story, part tale of human-animal relationships and all quest narrative. It explores the writing of an animal biography as a challenge to both research and narrative as well as a promise for re-articulating an interspecies relationship.
This episode, part of the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT) History of the Maghrib / History in the Maghreb lecture series, was recorded at the Library of the Medina of Tunis - Dar Ben Achour - on 12 April 2018.
We thank Ahmed Fetoui for his interpretation of "Bellah Ya Ghazali" for the introduction and conclusion of this podcast.
Curator: Hayet Lansari, Librarian / Liaison Coordinator (CEMA).
Entretien avec Dr. Khadija Mohsen-Finan sur son dernier livre : Les Dissidents du Maghreb depuis les Independences
Le trauma colonial: enquête sur les effets de l’oppression coloniale en Algérie
Power and Ridicule: Political Mockery and Subversion in the Middle East and North Africa
Interview avec Pr. Mohammed Kerrou sur son dernier livre : L’Autre Révolution
L’architecture de la contre-révolution : l’armée française dans le nord de l’Algérie
Moroccan and Ottoman Contributions to 18th c. Diplomatic Developments
Anthropologie, généralisation et identité culturelle
Les enjeux politiques du 11 décembre 1960
The Mad-For-Maghreb Generation : The Maghreb In the Pan-African Cultural Project
GPRA, un mandat historique (1958-1962)
The History of Pan-Africanism in the Postcolonial Period: The Pan-African Festival of Algiers of 1969 (PANAF)
Rencontre avec Pr. Mohamed Mebtoul autour de son dernier ouvrage: Algérie, la citoyenneté impossible?
Why William Wordsworth is needed today
Rencontre avec Bouziane Ben Achour autour du théâtre algérien d'aujourd'hui
Muhammad I al-Mustansir of Tunis and the Northern Mediterranean
La résilience architecturale en Mauritanie
Le patrimoine en question : Entre métissages et territoires linguistiques
La science-fiction et la littérature algérienne: Discussion entre Kamel Daoud et l'auteur Riadh Hadir autour de son dernier roman, « Pupille »
Gunpowder Women: A Generation Galloping Past the Mudawana
La sociolinguistique de l'écrit dans le Trans-Sahara
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Teachers Talk Radio
LifeBlood
Navigating Life After 40
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Mel Robbins Podcast