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AIRN Seminar 2024-2025

The African Ivory Research Network is inaugurating a new cycle of seminars this February for the 2024-2025 academic year. As usual, the sessions will take place online. Until May, AIRN expects to host seven researchers who will share ideas and methodologies related to the topic of African ivory across different periods and geographies.

The schedule has already been set and is as follows:

  • Seminar no. 15 | Kate Lowe: Interpreting the Kongolese oliphants in the Medici collection in the sixteenth century [17 February 2025]
  • Seminar no. 16 | Peter Mark: Different Methodologies, divergent paradigms. Seeking compatibility between historical and art historical models for the Sapi Ivories [24 February 2025]
  • Seminar no. 17 | Kathy Curnow: Unexpected Sights: Snakes on a Plane? [10 March 2025]
  • Seminar no. 18 | Bernard Clist: Production, use and export of ivory in and out of Central Africa during prehistoric and historic times [24 March 2025]
  • Seminar no. 19 | Fernando Loureiro Bastos: The legal regime applicable to the circulation and trade in ivory objects of art [21 April 2025]
  • Seminar no. 20 | Mário Varela Gomes: Loango ivories. Some issues, between art, society, and ideology [12 May 2025]
  • Seminar no. 21 | Elsje van Kessel: TBA [26 May 2025]

All sessions will take place at 6:30 p.m. (GMT).

Video Available: Emperor Muzura of the Maravi Empire and intensification of International Trade at Mankhamba

by Yusuf M. Juwayeyi (Long Island University)

AIRN Seminar no. 10

Although Emperor Muzura is not mentioned in the oral traditions of the Chewa, more has been written about him than any other emperor of the Maravi. This is because his rule coincided with further Portuguese penetration of southern Africa, and the intensification of long-distance trade at Mankhamba, the capital of the Maravi Empire. The most important commodities traded were ivory and copper. In this presentation, I explore the evolution of this trade and how it helped raise Muzura’s profile and enlarged the Maravi Empire.

Speaker: Yusuf M. Juwayeyi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology, Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York.

African Ivories in the Atlantic World, 1400-1900 receives the 2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award

The Centre for History of the University of Lisbon is pleased to announce that the 2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award (Multi-authored volumes) for excellence in scholarship on the arts of Africa and the African Diaspora has been awarded to African Ivories in the Atlantic World, 1400-1900 (open access), a book published in 2021 by CH-ULisboa and edited by José da Silva Horta, Carlos Almeida and Peter Mark. 

The award was presented at the 19th ACASA – Arts Council of the African Studies Association Triennial Symposium on African Art, which took place in Chicago, Illinois, USA from August 7 through 11, 2024. Peter Mark was present at the award ceremony on behalf of the other editors and authors of the book.

The awards committee assessed works of original scholarship and excellence in visual presentation that makes significant contribution to our understanding of African arts and material culture.

AIRN Seminar no. 10: Emperor Muzura of the Maravi Empire and intensification of International Trade at Mankhamba

Speaker: Yusuf M. Juwayeyi (Long Island University)
Date: 17 January 2024 6 PM (GMT)
Organization: AIRN and CH-ULisboa
Zoom Meeting: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/99204203201
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Summary: Although Emperor Muzura is not mentioned in the oral traditions of the Chewa, more has been written about him than any other emperor of the Maravi. This is because his rule coincided with further Portuguese penetration of southern Africa, and the intensification of long-distance trade at Mankhamba, the capital of the Maravi Empire. The most important commodities traded were ivory and copper. In this presentation, I explore the evolution of this trade and how it helped raise Muzura’s profile and enlarged the Maravi Empire.

Yusuf M. Juwayeyi, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology, Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York.

Yusuf Juwayeyi was born and raised in Malawi, south-east Africa. He obtained a Bachelor of Social Science degree in History and Sociology at the University of Malawi in 1973, and the Ph.D. degree in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1981. Thereafter, he returned to Malawi to work as an Antiquities Officer in the Malawi Department of Antiquities where he rose to the position of Commissioner for Culture. In 2000, he was appointed Malawi’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

Yusuf Juwayeyi has also served on two major international bodies. From 1995-1999, he was the Sector Contact Point for the sector of Culture, Information and Sports of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). From 1994-1997, he was the Africa President and World Vice President of UNESCO’s World Decade for Cultural Development.

In 2004, he accepted a tenure track position at Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York. He has carried out archaeological excavations at Stone Age and Iron Age sites in Malawi and has published results of his research widely. His major interests are prehistoric economies during the Later Stone Age and Iron Age periods. Recently, he has focused on the emergence of complex societies during the Iron Age period. His recent book, Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa was published jointly by the University of Cape Town Press and James Currey of London in March 2020.

Recent publications:

2023. With Elizabeth Gomani Chindebvu, Louis L Jacobs, et. al. “The Mwesia Beds of Northern Malawi in Relation to the Tanganyika Problem.” Geological Society, London, Special Publications 543 (1).

2023. “The House with the Weird Animal: A Brief Account of the Establishment of Karonga and other Museums in Malawi.” In Yuong-Nam Lee. (Ed.) Windows into Sauropsid and Synapsid Evolution: Essays in Honor of Prof. Louis L. Jacobs. Dinosaur Science Center Press. South Korea.

2021. “The Early Inhabitants of Chiradzulo District, Malawi.” Society of Malawi Journal. 74 (3).

2021. International Ivory Trade and the Expansion of the Maravi State in Northern Zambezia.” In Josè Silva Horta, Carlos Almeida, and Peter Mark. (Eds.) African Ivories in the Atlantic World/Marfins Africanos no Mundo Atlântico. Centre for History, University of Lisbon.

2020. Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.