Shamil Jeppie

received his higher education at universities in Cape Town and Princeton; thereafter he spent two years at Oxford University. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town and is presently Director of the Institute for humanities in Africa (Huma) at the same university where the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project is located. For many years he was actively involved in fostering South-South research and scholarly exchanges. His research and publications have focused on social and cultural history in South Africa and West Africa.

He has published a book on the history of Arabic in Gujarati-speaking community of South Africa (Language, community, and identity: Arabic in a South African community, Durban, 1950 - 2000. Cape Town: HSRC Press. 2007); an edited collection on the manuscripts collections of Timbuktu with Souleyman Bashir Diagne (The meanings of Timbuktu. Cape Town: HSRC Press. 2008. French translation, Codesria: Dakar, 2011; Japanese translation in progress). He has also written about aspects of law and politics in colonial Sudan, acting as lead editor on a volume on Islamic law in Africa (Muslim family law in sub-Saharan Africa: colonial legacies and post-colonial challenges. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010). His current research includes a biography of a book collector in Timbuktu, various aspects of the history of books as objects of consumption.