Bruce S. Hall, Associate Professor

Please note: Bruce has left the "History" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

My first book, A history of race in Muslim West Africa, 1600-1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), is about the development of ideas about racial difference along the West African Sahel. The research for this project was focused in and around the Malian town of Timbuktu. My current research centers on a nineteenth-century commercial network that connected Timbuktu with Ghadames (Libya), and which involved a number of literate slaves as commercial agents.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	History Dept, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:

Specialties:

Race and Ethnicity
Legal History
Intellectual History
Global Transnational History
Comparative Colonial Studies
African, Middle East and Asia
Global and Comparative

Research Interests:

My first book, A history of race in Muslim West Africa, 1600-1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), is about the development of ideas about racial difference along the West African Sahel. The research for this project was focused in and around the Malian town of Timbuktu. My current research centers on a nineteenth-century commercial network that connected Timbuktu with Ghadames (Libya), and which involved a number of literate slaves as commercial agents.

Areas of Interest:

Saharan and West African ideas about racial difference
Saharan and West African intellectual history
Saharan and West African commerce
Slavery

Keywords:

Commerce • Intellectual history • Islam • Islamic education • Mali • Muslim West Africa • Slavery

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Hall, BS, Review of Judith Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: regional connectivity in the twentieth century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Politique Africaine no. 131 (October, 2013), pp. 224-31
2. with Lecocq, B; Mann, G; Whitehouse, B; Badi, D; Pelckmans, L; Belalimat, N; Hall, B; Lacher, W, One hippopotamus and eight blind analysts: a multivocal analysis of the 2012 political crisis in the divided Republic of Mali, Review of African Political Economy, vol. 40 no. 137 (September, 2013), pp. 343-357 [doi]  [abs] [author's comments]
3. Hall, BS, Saharan commerce and Islamic law: The question of usury (Ribā) in the Nawāzil literature of Mali and Mauritania, 1700-1929, African Economic History, vol. 41 no. 41 (January, 2013), pp. 1-18
4. Bruce S. Hall, "Saharan Commerce and Islamic Law: The Question of Usury 1 (ribā) in the Nawāzil Literature of Mali and Mauritania, 1700-1929", African Economic History, vol. 41 (2013), pp. 1-20
5. Hall, BS; Addoun, YD, “The Arabic Letters of the Ghadames Slaves in the Niger Bend, 1860-1900”, in African Slavery/African Voices, edited by Bellagamba, A; Greene, S; Brown, C; Klein, M (2013), pp. pp.485-500, Cambridge University Press, New York  [abs] [author's comments]