Farewell Saarah Jappie

The Tombouctou Manuscripts Project and the Archive and Public Culture initiative hosted a joint farewell party for Saarah Jappie on the 29th of July 2011. The party was a festive occasion bringing together the many friends Saarah has made in her stay in Cape Town. Shamil reminded us all in his speech that evening what a special member of the Project Saarah has been these last three years, as an excellent researcher, a dedicated project assistant and as a dear friend.

Saarah graduated with a distinction in her M.A degree in March this year and is now leaving Cape Town to embark on a new phase of her academic career as a PhD student at Princeton University (USA), where she will begin in September 2011. This will be the beginning of a six year PhD degree in historical studies for her, in which time she intends to further her research on African manuscript history and Ajami writing cultures in the broader Indian Ocean context under the supervision of Professor Laffan. Saarah has been with the project for three years, contributing both though her own research on local manuscripts and in her capacity as a research assistant. However, she has extended herself beyond these roles and keenly involved herself in many other aspects of the project, including trips to Mali in 2009 and 2011, the ‘Writing African History’ workshops and the ‘Calligraphic Africa: on the means and ends of writing’ seminar series.

We wish her all the best with her studies at Princeton!