Conference: Sufi Arts, Rituals, and Performance in Africa, 02/07

Sufi Arts, Rituals, and Performance in Africa
Conference: Thursday February 22nd to Sunday February 25th
Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas

The seemingly insurmountable political conflict between fundamentalist Islam and the West at the beginning of the twenty-first century has cast a shadow over the relationship between peoples, whose religions share common roots, whose values bespeak the same humanity, and whose artistic expressions are built on similar aesthetic foundations. Through exploration of the cultural dimension of Sufism in Africa, this conference seeks to create a deeper understanding of the religion and perhaps to inspire consideration of Islam as something other than an opposing world view.

Popular Islam in Africa is deeply connected with Sufism in its various forms. Political Islam and its intertwinement with Nationalism in contemporary Africa have obscured the deep roots of Sufi Islam. Sufi brotherhoods have played major roles in African societies historically, in anti-colonial movements, social welfare, and cultural practices. Sufi saints and marabouts have been important lodestars and moral compasses for millions of Muslims from Morocco to Egypt, to the Swahili coast, and back west to Senegal.

In much of Africa, Sufism is a way of life. As such, it encompasses diverse, rich wells of artistic traditions: visual art practices that include human representation, ritual performance, dance, music, poetry, and literature. Scholarship on Sufism has generally neglected these myriad artistic dimensions, which our conference seeks to highlight. The conference will occur in conjunction with the opening of the traveling exhibition, "A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal," at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS.

We solicit papers and panel proposals that address Sufi arts and ritual performances in Africa including – but not limited to - the following themes: visual culture, ritual performance, dance, music, drumming, poetry, architecture and urban design, political arts and performance, or gender in Sufi performance.

Please send your contact information and an abstract of 250 words by email to Dr. Garth Myers (gmyers@ku.edu), or to Dr. Khalid El-Hassan (elhassan@ku.edu) by Monday, January 15, 2007

Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.