Paul Love is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and an CAORC Andrew W. Mellon Mediterranean Regional Research Fellow currently in Tunisia.
Paul Love gave a presentation which argued that, like people, manuscripts and books make connections and serve to (re)produce communities and collective memories. Mr. Love's research focuses on five Ibadi Muslim manuscripts/books in North Africa and the Mediterranean as a way of demonstrating the connections between people, people and places, and people and their books, from the medieval period to the present.
His presentation explored how (and why) the tribes of the medieval Sahara, early modern Italian traders, the printing press, Orientalists, the photocopier and the internet all belong to the same long term history of the (re)construction and maintenance of Ibadi Muslims, their community and their collective memory in the Maghrib.
This talk was an installment of CEMAT’s Thursday Tunis Talks (TTTs). TTT is an Anglophone lecture-series that has been organized on a regular basis since 2012. TTTs provide a variety of multi-disciplinary lectures by AIMS grantees, scholars in the field, CEMAT Scientific Council members and friends of CEMAT catering to the growing Anglophone community in Tunis. Talks include book signings, large-scale lectures and lively discussions on current topics concerning Tunisia and the Maghrib.