Making the child ‘sharīf’ in Urdu textbooks – Muslim, yet not Islamic
Sumaira Nawaz reflects on Urdu educational texts in colonial North India and how they informed new sensibilities and identities across religious divides
Omar Berrada: Il est temps de revendiquer un cosmopolitisme du sud
"La colonisation n'appartient pas au passé, elle survit à sa propre mort en organisant une double amnésie: l'effacement des cultures colonisées et l'igonrance ou le déni de cet effacement."
Sowing the seeds of subalternity in Somali Literature
Photograph of Afgoye, Somalia from 2013 (source: Wiki Commons) Mohamed A. Eno is professor and dean of African Studies at St. Clements University in Mogadishu, Somalia. His groundbreaking work uses literature, especially folk poetry, to challenge the myth of a homogenous Somalia and to expose the exclusion and
Poetic inserts and the art of persuasion in the Somali novel “Aqoondarro waa u nacab jacayl” (“Ignorance is the enemy of love”) by Faarax M. J. Cawl
Ruixuan Li is a first year PhD student at SOAS University of London focusing on modern Somali poetry. Her research looks at the complex identities expressed by the new generation of Somali women poets through a comparative study of their poetry in Somali and English. Ignorance is the enemy of love: the novel
The Pulaar book network: transnationalism from below?
Researcher Melanie Bouret examines the grassroots movement for literacy in Pulaar, an African Fulani language spoken in Senegal and Mauritania (and in a vast diaspora), and shows how books circulate throughout a transregional network that is at once coordinated and spontaneous.
Iran’s official book awards: a more open ‘World’ literature
Iranian poet, literary critic and translator Alireza Abiz examines Iran's 'World Book Award' and the languages, works, and topics it considers and finds the prize to be surprisingly expansive in acknowledging different sources of cultural and literary exchange in Iran
Concrete Poetry: Morten Søndergaard’s Wall of Dreams
In the second of our series on concrete poetry, MULOSIGE's Jack Clift speaks to poet and artist Morten Søndergaard about his latest work, Wall of Dreams
Retrospective: MULOSIGE roundtable on Aamir Mufti’s Forget English!
Fatima Burney looks back at our roundtable discussion with Professor Aamir Mufti and explores the consequences of his latest book, Forget English!, for the MULOSIGE project
English is an African Language- the Language of Coexistence
Mauritanian writer Mohmed Bouya Bamba argues that English has practical advantages for interethnic and intercountry communication in Africa, so Africans should reclaim the language instead of waging a futile ideological war
Imperial Languages/Languages and Empire: A reflection
MULOSIGE's Francesca Orsini interrogates a new collaborative project that explores the interaction between languages and empire and suggests that 'imperial languages' as a conceptual category should be deployed carefully