Textual Life - Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities

The Senegalese Muslim scholar Shaykh Musa Kamara wrote a monumental history of West Africa in a time when colonial discourses asserted that Africans lacked both writing and history. Textual Life considers Kamara's story as a parable about the fate of the humanities amid epistemic and technological change.

About the author

Wendell H. Marsh is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Rutgers University-Newark.

Product details

• Authors: Wendell Marsh
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 21.10.2025
• EAN: 9780231210706
• ISBN: 978-0-231-21070-6
• No. of pages: 312
• Series: Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Ethnic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Islamic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Black Studies (Global), HISTORY / Africa / West, Islamic Studies, African History, Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies, West Africa, Relating to Islamic / Muslim people and groups, Social groups: religious groups and communities