An open ended discussion of archives, research experiences, and the politics of historical research in the North African region.Dr. James McDougall, Laithwaite Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at the University of Oxford, will be giving a public talk as well as participating in the Muslim Diasporas Seminar of the Religions and Public Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke.Dr. McDougall's current research is divided between two projects: one concerns "the everyday life of colonialism" and the after-effects of empire in France and Africa; he holds a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship for this project (2014-17); the other focuses on the global history of Islam since the eighteenth century.This spring, the Religions and Public Life Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics in collaboration with FHI Humanities Futures and the Department of History, will host three scholars of Islamic and comparative studies. Each will give a public talk and participate in the Muslim Diasporas working group seminar during their visit.