IMC 2020: Sessions
Session 656: West African Borders: Reading through External Accounts
Tuesday 7 July 2020, 11.15-12.45
Sponsor: | Historisches Institut, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
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Organiser: | Adam Simmons, Department of History, Lancaster University |
Moderator/Chair: | Verena Krebs, Historisches Institut, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
Paper 656-a | Recognition of Rulership: A Comparison of European Narratives of Political Encounter and Diplomacy in West Africa (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Spanish or Portuguese, Politics and Diplomacy |
Paper 656-b | Transcending Borders in Medieval Africa: Before and after the Libro del conoscimiento, c. 1378-1402 (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Spanish or Portuguese |
Abstract | West Africa does not often appear alongside other regions of Africa and its connectivity to the wider medieval world due to limited textual sources. This session will analyse the contemporary understanding of West African political and geographical borders through rereading European texts. Whilst sources may be scarcer than for other regions, those that do exist offer many more insights than have currently been gained from them. |