Ghislaine Lydon

Fields of interest: Nineteenth and twentieth century Western Africa family, finance and business history.

Professor Lydon received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Her dissertation is entitled “On Trans-Saharan Trails: Trading Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa, 1840s-1930s.” It explores the long-distance trading networks of families who, across three generations, organized camel caravans on trans-Saharan trails. It covers a large area encompassing Mauritania and the bordering regions of northwestern Mali, southern Morocco and northern Senegal. The study is based on a wide variety of sources ranging from oral histories and colonial archives, to Arabic trading records found in private libraries.

Lydon has published articles on a variety of historical topics including financial institutions and families in francophone West Africa. Her most recent article is entitled “Inkwells of the Sahara: Reflections on the Production of Islamic Knowledge in Bilad Shinqit” (In The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa, Scott Reese, Ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 39-71).

Seminars:

History 275A: African History Colloquium: The Law in African History

History 275B: African History Colloquium: Credit, Currencies and Culture

History 275C: African History Colloquium: Oral Sources and Historical Methods

History 191J / 201N: Undergraduate Variable Topics Seminars: Africa: Leaders and Slaves, Traders and Prostitutes: Writing Women into African History

History 197J / 201N: Undergraduate Seminar: Africa: Islam and Muslim Communities in African History

History 197J / 201N: Undergraduate Seminar: Africa: Francophone African History and Culture

Lectures:

History 166A: History of West Africa: West Africa from Earliest Times to 1800 (Winter 2005)

History 166B: History of West Africa: West Africa since 1800

History 10B: History of Africa: 1800 to the Present (Spring 2005)

Other:

Islamic Studies Core Course

CURRICULUM VITAE

History Faculty Index

History Home

UCLA Home