The Events in Niger and the Politics of the Sahel in the 20th and 21st Centuries

With Ousseina D. Alidou (Rutgers), Andrew Lebovich (Clingendael Institute),

Gregory Mann (Columbia), and Madina Thiam (NYU)

Organized and moderated by Liz Fink (NYU)

Date: September 20, 2023

Time: 6:30-8pm ET

Venue: La Maison Française of NYU, 16 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003

This event will help frame the urgent events in the Sahel, most recently the July 2023 coup d’état in Niger, in the politics of the West African Sahel in the 20th and 21st centuries. The discussants will share their research on politics, Islam, and social life in the Sahel, providing historical context to the dynamic and important place of the Sahel in West African, French, and global geopolitics.

Ousseina D. Alidou is Professor of Theoretical Linguistics, Gender and Cultural Studies in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. She is the author of "Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Representation, Political and Social Change" (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2013) and "Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger" (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2005).

Andrew Lebovich is a Research Fellow with the Clingendael Institute’s Conflict Research Unit and a postdoctoral researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies. His academic work examines Muslim reformist movements in Algeria, Senegal, and Mali in the mid-20th century, as well as their impact on politics and social life in the region. He has previously worked for the European Council on Foreign Relations as a policy fellow and with the Open Society Initiative in West Africa as a Sahel consultant.

Gregory Mann is Professor of History at Columbia University. He is a historian of Mali and the Sahel in the twentieth century, and the author of "Native Sons: West African Veterans and France" (Duke UP, 2006) and "From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Nongovernmentality" (Cambridge UP, 2015).

Madina Thiam is Assistant Professor of History at NYU. She is a historian of West Africa and the African Diaspora in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her work explores the circulations of West African people and ideas; social histories of Islam in Mali; race-making in the Sahel; Malian women’s histories; anti-colonial movements; and pan-Africanism.

Sponsored by: NYU’s Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture; Department of Comparative Literature; NYU Africa House