OSU - Berber North Africa: The Hidden Mediterranean Culture

Institute Faculty and Staff

Ahmed Boukous is one of the world’s leading experts in Berber studies. He has taught Berber culture at the University of Rabat, in Morocco since 1974. A perfect multilingual, and an erudite in the field, Mr. Boukous is no doubt the ideal authority for the introductory week of our Institute. He was appointed Director of the Royal Institute for the Amazigh/Berber Culture (IRCAM) by the Moroccan King, Mohamed VI, on November 2005. His book publications include Société, langues et cultures au Maroc (Rabat: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres, 1995), Dominance et différence. Essais sur les enjeux symbolique au Maroc (Casablanca: Le Fennec, 1999), Sociolinguistique marocaine (Paris: Sorbonne: 1999). More recently, in collaboration with Fatima Agnaou, he has published on gender, education and economic development in Morocco.

Fatima Agnaou is the other scholar-in-residence at IRCAM. She has published extensively on the Berber language and on the issues around its transcription. With her husband Ahmed Boukous she published Gender, Literacy and Empowerment in Morocco (Routledge, 2004). Fatima Agnaou is also a specialist of linguistics and education and has published on Berber literacy in North Africa. She has written a set of Berber language textbooks. She will assist her husband, Ahmed Boukous, in leading the first unit of the Institute.

Tassadit Yacine is Professor of Anthropology and North African Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, France. She is the editor-in-chief of the international review of Berber studies, Awal, founded in 1985 by the famous Algerian writer, Mouloud Mammeri and the world-renowned sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. She is currently giving lectures on Berber culture in several countries and directs a cultural program for a Berber television station in Paris (Berbère TV). Tassadit Yacine is the leading world scholar in the field and has published extensively on the different aspects of North African culture. Her book publications include: Poésie berbère et identité, l'Izli ou l'amour chanté en kabyle, les Voleurs de feu, Jean Amrouche: L'éternel exilé, choix de textes (1939-1950), Ait Menguellet Chante, Chacal ou la ruse des dominés.

David Crawford is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Fairfield University. He has done extensive field work among Moroccan Berbers, specifically to study migration patterns among the highland Berbers. His publications have mostly focused on contemporary Berber cultural and social themes, including most recently, “Royal Interest in Local Culture: Amazigh/Berber Identity and the Moroccan State,” in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2005.

Kamal Salhi is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Leeds, England. He wrote and directed plays, made documentaries and co-directed the full-length film, Pour la Liberté, in French and Berber about the Franco-Algerian conflict. His research lies primarily in the area of Francophone and post-colonial studies, politics and aesthetics of African cultural production (theatre, film, and literature), post-colonial theory, North African cultural and language policies, and currently the legacies and conflicts in the cultures since independence. He has supervised and examined research work and organized international Francophone conferences. Major publications include a monograph, The Politics and Aesthetics of Kateb Yacine (Mellen Press, 1999), and edited volumes, African Theatre for Development (Intellect, 1997), and Francophone Voices (Elm Bank, 1999). Kamal Salhi is the founder and editor of the first independent International Journal of Francophone Studies.

Helene Hagan is a North African anthropologist whose work focuses on the Berber cultures of her native land, Morocco. Since 1992 she has served as the Executive Director of the Tazzla Institute for Cultural Diversity, in California. In that role she is one of the most important promoters of education about Berber culture in the United States. In 2001, she has published a book entitled: The Shining Ones: an Etymological Essay on the Amazigh/Berber Roots of Egyptian Civilization, and in 2006 another book, Tuareg Jewelry: Traditional Patterns and Symbols.

Nabil Boudraa, Institute Co-director, is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Oregon State University. He has written on Berber studies in both French and English. He is currently working, in collaboration with Joseph Krause, on a book project with Cambridge Scholars Press on the Berbers and other minorities in North Africa. He is also the guest editor of a special issue of The International Journal of Francophone Studies on Berbers in Francophone Literature, to come out in 2007. He has published an edited volume Hommage à Kateb Yacine at l’Harmattan in 2006. He co-organized an international conference, “The Berbers and Other Minorities in North Africa,” held in May 2005 in Portland, Oregon.

Joseph Krause, Institute Co-director, is Professor of French Studies and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Oregon State University. Principally a creative writer, he has published seven books of poetry in French. His poetry has been published in regarded refereed journals in France, Belgium, Canada, and the United States. It has also been featured recently in Paris, alongside the writings of other Francophone poets, at an exhibit sponsored by the University of Paris. He is the Editor of the literary journal To Topos: Poetry International. Recently he established the first US study abroad program in Tunisia. His teaching is primarily focused on contemporary French culture and society and on Francophone African literatures. His educational and administrative work has sought to preserve and revitalize vulnerable indigenous languages. He coordinated with Nabil Boudraa on the first international conference held in the United States on Berbers and North African minorities.

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