Illuminating Manuscripts & Archives: An Interactive Close Reading of Mali Magic
This event has been cancelled.
CANCELED
Due to circumstances beyond our control, next Tuesday’s BPL Presents program, Illuminated Manuscripts and Archives, is cancelled. We expect to revisit this event in the fall and sincerely hope you’ll join us then.
Thank you
The BPL Presents Team
In this live conversation, leading archivists, librarians, and writers unpack the significance of Malian manuscripts and the vast digitized platform Mali Magic created and offered in multiple translations by Google Arts & Culture. How can this preservation and digitization effort be able to bridge African and African American experience or rewrite dominant histories, against the backdrop of prevailing Western narratives? We discuss the stakes of preservation, the political suppression of collective memory, and question who holds the right to structure an archive.
From Left: Lae'l Hughes Watkins; Chance Coughenour; Lama Eldesouky; Moderator Cynthia Schneider.
Participants
Lae'l Hughes Watkins, founder of Project Stand and creator of the reparative archive framework
Chance Coughenour, Google Arts & Culture’s head of preservation who led the Mali Magic project
Lama Eldesouky, whose cultural heritage preservation work focuses on the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan and who most recently participated in bringing forth the Mali Magic platform online
Moderator Cynthia Schneider, former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands and Co-Director of Timbuktu Renaissance
For all indoor BPL Presents programs, guests must provide proof of vaccination and wear masks while onsite at all times. In-person capacity is limited and will be conducted on a first-come, first-served basis.
We are not able to accept negative Covid test results (PCR or rapid antigen tests). In addition, we ask that you conduct a self-assessment before arriving and again onsite to ensure that you are not feeling unwell and have not experienced any symptoms attributable to COVID-19, nor had contact with a person suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19 within the last 10 days. Please also keep a physical distance of six feet from those who are not within your own household whenever possible and remember to wash your hands/use hand sanitizer frequently.
