Writing this keynote address has been a fraught and sobering experience, heightened by
an acute feeling of stepping outside my scholarly comfort zone in east and central African
history before the 19th century CE. The discomfort encouraged me to shift positions, in this case
from that of a scholar writing...
This paper was commissioned by the Program of African Studies (PAS) as a complement
to the new edition of Dahomean Narrative that was published by Northwestern University Press
as part of the celebration of the PAS’s fiftieth anniversary. The new forward to the volume
places Dahomean Narrative within the history...