Summer Academy 2007
Sharia Debates in Africa – Second international and multidisciplinary Summer Academy at Bayreuth University
After the success of 2006 Franz Kogelmann organised a second international and multidisciplinary Summer Academy at Bayreuth University in 2007. It is part of the since 2006 ongoing project „Sharia Debates and Their Perception by Christians and Muslims in Selected African Countries“ funded by Volkswagen Foundation. Beside these two Summer Academies at Bayreuth University the project has already organised a series of workshops, one regional in East Africa, and one for all members in Sudan and a third one on the verge of a status symposium arranged by Volkswagen Foundation in Mali. Eleven Junior Scholars from Tunisia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria enjoyed the outstanding research facilities of Bayreuth University to work on their individual projects. In contrast to the Summer Academy of 2006 – whose main focus was on an intensive introduction into contemporary methodology in social sciences – the Junior Scholars have had to present and to discuss their preliminary research results. Hence elaboration and revision of their already accomplished research work was the main objective of 2007. During their two month’s stay at Bayreuth University the Junior Scholars have been endorsed and encouraged by their country coordinators Osman Mohamed Osman, University of Khartoum, Sudan, John Chesworth, St. Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya, Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria and from Bayreuth University by Ulrich Berner and Asonzeh Ukah, both Religious Studies, Kurt Beck, Social Anthropology, Franz Kogelmann, Islamic Studies, and the Sociologist Gabriele Cappai.
By Franz Kogelmann
First published in NAB Newsletter of African Studies at Bayreuth University, Vol. VII/1 Spring 2008