Shamil Jeppie (University of Cape Town): "Book Collecting in Timbuktu."

Date: 

Monday, October 3, 2022, 5:15pm

Location: 

Barker Center 133, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA

Sponsor: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on the History of the Book

 

This lecture surveys five centuries of collecting in Timbuktu, a town in the interior of West Africa, that has come to symbolize a larger world of learning and book culture in the region. This lecture follows citations in texts written in the town in the 16th century, book borrowing and copying, through to a major collector of the early 20th century who both attempted to conserve the manuscript book tradition and imported printed books to Timbuktu.