The Maghrib Studies Initiative, a joint venture of the Centers for African Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, aims to bring together faculty and students at Berkeley with an interest in North Africa. The initiative aims to organize academic events and help develop teaching materials on the Maghrib that are tailored for the needs of professors, instructors, researchers and students at UC Berkeley to teach and learn about the region.
Interim Director, Center for African Studies, Associate Professor, History
History
Center for African Studies
Professor Hall's research is focused on the intellectual and social history of a region of West Africa called the Sahel, which straddles the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It encompasses the modern countries of Mauritania, Mali and Niger. Most of the research that he has carried out has been based in and around the northern Malian town of Timbuktu, in a sub-region of the Sahel called the Niger Bend. He has worked in Timbuktu because it is the site of remarkable collections of written sources in Arabic from across the Sahel and further a field in the Muslim world. His work is located...
