Africa at Noon

Presented by Sean Bloch, graduate student and 2010 Jordan Prize Winner, Department of History. Western perceptions of violence in the developing world frequently focus on opportunist “pirates,” who exploit iniquity in the vain pursuit of power. A pirate in the “modern” world is an absurdity, one that comfortably effaces terms like “Shifta,” rooted in regional history. Bloch seeks to place Shifta in their proper historical context, destabilizing the timeless bandit imagery.