Sean Hanretta and Ousman Kobo on William A. Brown’s legacy

In this episode, Professors Sean Hanretta and Ousman Kobo join JAH editor Moses Ochonu to discuss the life and work of Professor William A. Brown. While he published little, Bill Brown’s landmark 1968 dissertation on the Caliphate of Hamdullahi, meticulous photographing of Arabic manuscripts in Mali, and decades of teaching and mentoring students at the University of Wisconsin Madison left a profound — if vastly under-acknowledged — impact on the ways that historians of Africa engage with sources and ideas. Brown’s commitments to emancipatory politics and epistemological rigor, moreover, offered an early and powerful critique of the Orientalist and anti-Black assumptions embedded in the production of much historical knowledge about West Africa, oral traditions, and Islamic intellectuals.

Brown’s life and work is the subject of the History Matters section in Volume 64, Issue 2 of The Journal of African History. In addition to the open access introduction by Kobo and Hanretta, ‘William A. Brown and the Assessment of a Scholarly Life’, the section features six contributions:

• ‘The Caliphate, the Black Writer, and a World in Revolution, 1957–69’ by Madina Thiam
• ‘A Hidden Repository of Arabic Manuscripts from Mali: The William A. Brown Collection’ by Mauro Nobili and Said Bousbina
• ‘Le témoignage d’Almamy Maliki Yattara sur W. A. Brown: Dr Brown through the Testimony of Almamy Maliki Yattara’ by Bernard Salvaing
• ‘William Allen Brown, Jr., 1934–2007: An Appreciation’ (forthcoming) by David Henry Anthony III
• ‘The Impact of Informal Mentorship: A Tribute to Professor William Brown’ (forthcoming) by Ousman Kobo

• ‘Egypt in Africa: William A. Brown and a Liberating African History’ by Sean Hanretta