WWU to Host Fallou Ngom for ‘The Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya’ March 11
Western Washington University Provost's Office, Center for International Studies, English Department, and Global Humanities and Religions will host Boston University’s Fallou Ngom for “The Odyssey of Ajami and Muridiyya” at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 11 in Academic West 204.
Ngom will discuss his groundbreaking book, “Muslims Beyond the Arab World: The Odyssey of Ajami and Muridiyya,” which won the 2017 Melville J. Herskovists Prize for most important scholarly work in African Studies. Fallowing Ngom’s presentation, Western students who recently took part in a study-abroad trip in Senegal and interacted with Ngom’s research team will present their work from the trip.
Formerly a faculty member at Western, Ngom taught in the Modern Languages department. He left in 2008 to become director of Boston University’s African Studies Center and is recognized as a foremost expert of African languages such as Woolf, Mande and Pulaar that are alphabetized with Arabic script. Ajami language literature was dismissed by French colonizers and colonialist era scholars as “bad Arabic.” Ngom’s scholarship has brought attention to the great depth and scope of Ajami literature in West Africa, some dating back 1,000 years. Ngom’s work has helped to re-contextualize the field of African Studies and challenge the view that traditional black African culture was purely oral.
For more information please contact Western Washington University’s Christopher Wise at wisec@wwu.edu.