A joint initiative between the University of Bergen
and CMI – Chr. Michelsen Institute
Welcome to a breakfast conversation with the award-winning Sudanese fiction writer, essayist, and playwright, Leila Aboulela.
In this meeting, Leila Aboulela will discuss her life’s work exploring the themes of gender, Muslim migration, identity, religion, East meets West and decolonization.
Leila will be joined by Dr. Munzoul Asal, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum, and Tijana Przulj, PhD Candidate in the Department of Foreign Languages at UiB. The talk will be moderated by Dr. Sarah A. Tobin, Research Director and Research Professor at CMI.
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Leila Aboulela, born in Sudan to an Egyptian mother and Sudanese father, is based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is the author of six novels and several short stories. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and is highly acclaimed for sensitivity to sources, history, and the complexities of her topics.
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Munzoul Assal is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum and Senior Researcher at CMI. He is also Professor II at the Department of social anthropology, UiB. Prior to this he was the Director of the Peace Research Institute at the University of Khartoum, and Dean of Scientific Research.
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Tijana Przulj is a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Bergen, Department of Foreign Languages. She also holds an MA in English from the University of Bergen.
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Sarah Tobin is an anthropologist focusing on Islam, economic anthropology, and displacement/migration in the Middle East and East Africa.
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Leila Aboulela, born in Sudan to an Egyptian mother and Sudanese father, is based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is the author of six novels and several short stories. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and is highly acclaimed for sensitivity to sources, history, and the complexities of her topics.
Her most recent work, River Spirit, is a historical novel that tackles difficult issues including colonization, slavery, and bravery in the face of insurmountable obstacles.
Munzoul Assal is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum and Senior Researcher at CMI. He is also Professor II at the Department of social anthropology, UiB. Prior to this he was the Director of the Peace Research Institute at the University of Khartoum, and Dean of Scientific Research.
Assal was a visiting professor at the universities of Paris 8 (2009) and Sharjah, UAE (2020-2021). His research focuses on migration, refugees, internally displaced persons and peace building. His books include Sticky labels and rich ambiguities: Somalis and Sudanese in Norway and the challenge of homemaking (2004), Diaspora within and without Africa: homogeneity, heterogeneity, variation (2006, coedited with Leif Manger), Ann annotated bibliography of social research on Darfur (2006), Multidimensional change in Sudan (1989-2011): reshaping livelihoods, conflicts and identities (2016, coedited with Barbara Casciarri and F Ireton), Fifty years of anthropology in Sudan: past, present and future (2015 coedited with Musa Abdul-Jalil), Borderlands dynamics in East Africa: cases from Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda (2019 coedited with Leif Manger et al). Assal was member of the Board of Trustees, the Arab Council for Social Sciences (2015-2023). In 2023 Assal was voted in as an honorary fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Tijana Przulj is a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Bergen, Department of Foreign Languages. She also holds an MA in English from the University of Bergen.
Tijana’s research interests include transnational literature, decolonization, literary border crossings, aesthetic response and attachment, the nature of fiction, and autofiction. Her dissertation project explores transnational Anglophone literature with a particular interest in the notions of liminality, home, belonging and intimacy.
Sarah Tobin is an anthropologist focusing on Islam, economic anthropology, and displacement/migration in the Middle East and East Africa.
Her work explores transformations in religious and economic life, identity construction, and personal piety. She also examines the intersections with gender, Islamic authority and normative Islam, public ethics, and Islamic authenticity. Ethnographically, her work has focused to a large degree on Islamic piety in the economy, especially Islamic Banking and Finance. Dr. Tobin also explore these questions in times of economic shifts, such as during Ramadan, in contested fields of consumption such as the hijab, and the Arab Spring.
Her latest research projects examine these questions with Syrian refugees in Jordanian camps of Za`atari, Azraq, and Cyber City, and in Results-Based Financing in Tanzania.
sarah.tobin@cmi.no
+ 47 480 08 425
Bergen Global is a joint initiative between the University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute that addresses global challenges.
