Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies | Fairfield University

http://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/djns/

Nubian studies needs a platform in which the old meets the new, in which archaeological, papyrological, and philological research into Meroitic, Old Nubian, Coptic, Greek, and Arabic sources confront current investigations in modern anthropology and ethnography, Nilo-Saharan linguistics, and critical and theoretical approaches present in postcolonial and African studies.

The journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies brings these disparate fields together within the same fold, opening a cross-cultural and diachronic field where divergent approaches meet on common soil. Dotawo gives a common home to the past, present, and future of one of the richest areas of research in African studies. It offers a crossroads where papyrus can meet internet, scribes meet critical thinkers, and the promises of growing nations meet the accomplishments of old kingdoms.

We embrace a powerful alternative to the dominant paradigms of academic publishing. We believe in free access to information. Accordingly, we are proud to collaborate with DigitalCommons@Fairfield, an institutional repository of Fairfield University in Connecticut, USA, and with open-access publishing house punctum books. Thanks to these collaborations, every volume of Dotawo will be available both as a free online pdf and in online bookstores.

Current Volume: Volume 2 (2015)

From the Editors

We are proud to present the second volume of Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies. This journal offers a multi-disciplinary, diachronic view of all aspects of Nubian civilization. It brings to Nubian studies a new approach to scholarly knowledge: an open-access collaboration with DigitalCommons@Fairfield, an institutional repository of Fairfield University in Connecticut, usa, and publishing house punctum books.

The first two volumes of Dotawo have their origins in a Nubian language panel organized by Angelika Jakobi within the Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium held at the University of Cologne, May 22 to 24, 2013. Since many invited participants from Sudan were unable to get visas due to the shutdown of the German Embassy in Khartoum at that time, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation funded the organization of a second venue of specialists on modern Nubian languages. This so-called “Nubian Panel 2” was hosted by the Institute of African & Asian Studies at the University of Khartoum on September 18 and 19, 2013. This volume publishes the proceedings of that panel. We wish to extend our thanks both to the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and to Professor Abdelrahim Hamid Mugaddam, the then director of the Institute of African & Asian Studies, for their generous support.

Future volumes will address three more themes: 1) Nubian women; 2) Nubian place names; 3) and know-how and techniques in ancient Sudan. The calls for papers for the first two volumes may be found on the back of this volume. The third volume is already in preparation with the assistance of Marc Maillot of the Section française de la direction des antiquités du Soudan (sfdas), Department of Archeology. We welcome proposals for additional themed volumes, and invite individual submissions on any topic relevant to Nubian studies.