Personen

Prof. Dr. Kai Kresse

Stellvertretender Direktor

Telefon: +49-(0)30-80307-230
Regionaler Schwerpunkt: Afrika, v.a. Ostafrika und Swahili-Küste, auch südliches Afrika; transregionale Verbindungen, v.a. im Indischen Ozean; muslimische Welt; offen für Projekte zu allen Regionen
Prof. Dr. Kai Kresse
Prof. Dr. Kai Kresse

Aktuelles

Forthcoming publications (in press)

Re-thinking Odera Oruka’s Sage Philosophy. Editor, with Oriare Nyarwath. Lexington Books.

Read more at: Swahili Muslim Practices and Sage Philosophy, The Elephant - Speaking truth to power.

Review Artikel, mit Clarissa Vierke, Swahili Indian Ocean Literature, History Compass

Chapter zu Mudimbe-Vol., edited by Marie-Aude Fouere et al., IFRA, Nairobi

Chapter zu Mahmoud Mau, in volume edited by Clarissa Vierke & Anachiara Raia, Leiden: Brill

2021 Vortrag: Islands in a Cosmopolitan Sea: A History of the Comoros

2019 Rezension: Hamza Mustafa Njozi on Kai Kresse's "Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience"

2019 Podcast: History of Philosophy without any Gaps #26: Kai Kresse on the Anthropology of Philosophy

Beruflicher Werdegang

08/2018 - heute
Stellvertretender Direktor, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, in Verbindung mit einer W3 Sonderprofessur, Institut für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Freie Universität Berlin
2012 - 2018
Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS), African and Swahili Studies, Columbia University, New York
2006 - 2012
Stellvertretender Direktor, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
2005
Evans-Pritchard Lecturer, All Souls College, Oxford University
2002 - 2005
Lecturer, Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews

Ausbildung

2002
PhD in Anthropology and African Studies, SOAS, University of London. Dissertation: ‘Approaching philosophical discourse in a Swahili context: theory, knowledge, and intellectual practice in Old Town Mombasa, 1998– 1999’
1997
MSc in Social Anthropology (LSE), University of London, Dissertation zu Zulu praise poetry und ihrer sozio-regulativen Funktion
1996
Magister Artium (MA) in Philosophie, Afrikastudien und Deutsche Literatur, Universität Hamburg, Dissertation zu Ernst Cassirers Philosophie symbolischer Formen und ihrer Relevanz für das Projekt der interkulturellen Philosophie

Ausgewählte Publikationen

Monografien

Aktuell: Review of Michael Lambek’s Island in a Stream (Toronto UP: Anthropological Horizons, 2018?), Anthropological Quarterly

2018, Swahili Muslim Publics and Postcolonial Experience in Coastal Kenya. Indiana University Press & 2019 Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota.

2007, Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam, and intellectual practice on the Swahili coast. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute.

Herausgegebene Werke

2017, (Editor & translator) Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui. Selections from the first Swahili Islamic newspaper. A Swahili-English edition. Translated with Hassan Mwakimako. Foreword by A. Mazrui and H. M.K. Mazrui. Series ‘African Sources for African History,’ Leiden: Brill.

2016, (Editor, with Rose Marie Beck) Abdilatif Abdalla: Poet in Politics. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki wa Nyota Publishers.

2009, (Editor, with Trevor Marchand) Knowledge in Practice: Expertise and the Transmission of Knowledge. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2007/8, (Editor, with Edward Simpson) Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. London: Hurst/New York: Columbia University Press.

2005, (Editor) Reading Mudimbe, special issue of Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 17/1 (with articles by W. van Binsbergen, N. Lazarus, L. Brenner, K. Kresse).

1997, Editor, with A. Graness. Sagacious Reasoning: H. Odera Oruka in memoriam. Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang. 1999. African edition, by East African Educational Publishers, Nairobi.

Ausgewählte peer-reviewed Artikel und Buchkapitel

2016, ‘Kenya: Twendapi? Re-reading Abdilatif Abdalla’s pamphlet fifty years after Independence’ (with a translation of the Swahili original), Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 86(1), 1-32. (Read here)

2013, “On the skills to navigate the world, and religion, for coastal Muslims in Kenya“, in Magnus Marsden and Kostas Retsikas (eds), Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds, Amsterdam: Springer Press, 77-99. (Read here)

2012, “Interrogating ‘cosmopolitanism’ in an Indian Ocean setting: Mombasa and the Swahili coast”, in D. Maclean and S.K. Ahmed (eds), Cosmopolitanism in Muslim Contexts: Models from the Past. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 31-50. (Read here)

2011, “Auf dem Weg zu mehr Interdisziplinarität und Zusammenarbeit bei der Erforschung der philosophischen Traditionen in Afrika”, in: Polylog: Zeitschrift fuer interkulturelle Philosophie, Vol. 25, 115-131. Vienna. (Read here)

2009, “Muslim politics in postcolonial Kenya: Negotiating knowledge on the double-periphery”, in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI). Special issue on anthropology of Muslim politics, edited by B. Soares and F. Osella, 76-94. (Read here)

2009, “Knowledge and intellectual practice in a Swahili context: ‘wisdom’ and the social dimensions of knowledge”, in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 79/1, 148-167. (Read here)

Weitere ausgewählte Publikationen

2011, ‘Between Africa and India: thinking comparatively across the western Indian Ocean’, ZMO Working Papers 5, 1-15. Co-authored with Edward Simpson. (Read here)

2011, “Enduring relevance: samples of oral poetry on the Swahili coast”, in Wasafiri: Journal of Contemporary Writing, special issue on Indian Oceans oral literatures (edited by Stephanie Jones), vol. 26/2, 46-49. (Read here)

2003, "'Swahili Enlightenment?' East African reformist discourse at the turning point: the example of Sheikh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui", Journal of Religion in Africa Vol.33 (3), special issue on Islamic thought in Africa, 279-309. (Read here)

2002, "Towards a postcolonial synthesis in African philosophy - conceptual liberation and reconstructive self-evaluation in the work of Okot p'Bitek", in O. Oladipo (ed), Issues in African Philosophy. Essays in honour of Kwasi Wiredu. Ibadan: Hope Publishers, 215-232. (Read here)

1998, "Izibongo - the political art of praising: poetical socio-regulative discourse in Zulu society", in Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 171-196. (Read here)

 

Eine vollständige Liste aller Publikationen hier (Dezember 2018)

Betreute Promotionsprojekte

Doktoranden Erstbetreuungen, Institut für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, FU-Berlin:

Santram Antil, seit Juni 2019; Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS), ‘Wrestling and body politics: sports in postcolonial North India’

Vincent Favier, seit September 2018; Religion, Morality and Boko in West Africa: Students Training for a Good Life (Remoboko) ‘Preaching and Teaching: Religiosity, Knowledge and Performance among students and lecturers at West African universities’; gefördert durch die Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Yasmin Ismail, seit Oktober 2019; Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, ‘Brotherhood of Believers; Meaning making through a Global maktab System’

Lotte Knote, seit Januar 2020; Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), ‘A feminist ecology of seaweed farming: gendered livelihood strategies in aquaculture in the Western Indian Ocean’; gefördert durch die Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Anna Helfer, seit Juli 2020; ‘Zur Aktualität der Negritude in der Gegenwartskunst Dakars: Aneignungs- und Abgrenzungsprozesse als künstlerische Strategie einer dekolonialen Praxis‘

Mitgliedschaften

  • Hauptprüfer an der Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS), Freie Universität Berlin
  • Contributing Editor der Zeitschrift „Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East" (Duke University Press)
  • International Advisory Board member von „Africa: Journal of the International African Institute" (Cambridge University Press) 2011-2016, „Islamic Africa" (Brill) 2008-2013, „Polylog: Zeitschrift für Interkulturelles Philosophieren" (Wien, seit 2010) und d

Ehrungen und Preise (Auswahl)

2015 - 2016
Senior Visiting Fellowship, Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS), Freie Universität Berlin
Dezember 2019
Honourable Mention, in Elliot Skinner Award competition by the der African Anthropology section of the American Anthropology Association (AAA) für die beste anthropologische Monografie im Jahr 2007-8, Philosophising in Mombasa
September 2018
Honourable Mention, Herskovits Award für die beste Monografie zu Afrika im Jahr 2007, des African Studies Association (ASA) Komitee
November 2005
Evans-Pritchard Lectureship, All Souls College, Oxford; sechs Vorlesungen zu ‘Swahili intellectual practice and everyday life: discourses of Islam and Muslim identity in postcolonial Mombasa’

Weitere Links

2019, History of Philosophy without any Gaps #26: Kai Kresse on the Anthropology of Philosophy

2010, Baraza-Events: Documentation of the series organized by Kai Kresse at the ZMO

2009, Terms of Analysis in African Studies: do we need 'Conceptual Decolonisation’?  Roundtable Discussion with Kwasi Wiredu (Tampa), J.D.Y. Peel (London), Ute Luig (FU-Berlin), Katrin Bromber (ZMO-Berlin), Andreas Eckert (HU-Berlin), and Presentation by Kai Kresse (ZMO) - Audiodocumentation of the Complete Discussion

2008, „Swahili scholars, poetry and politics“, Gespräch mit Sheikh Abdilahi Nassir, Islamwissenschaftler und Politiker, und dem Poet Ustadh Ahmad Nassir organisiert von Kai Kresse am ZMO.