Robert S. Kramer

Scholarship and the two Sudans: an interview with Professor Samson Wassara

Over a period of several months in late 2013 I had the pleasure of carrying on a long-distance conversation with Samson Samuel Wassara, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bahr alGhazal and former Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College of Social and Economic Studies at the University of Juba, Republic of South Sudan. Professor Wassara earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from the University of Khartoum (1980), a Diplôme de troisième cycle en Relations Diplomatiques from the Institut international d’administration publique in Paris (1989), a Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Spécialisées in Diplomacy and Administration of International Organizations from the University of Paris (1989), and a Doctorat en Droit, Nouveau Régime (PhD) in Public International Law from the University of Paris (1994). In talking with Professor Wassara, I wanted to learn not only his ideas about potential topics for scholarly collaboration between the two Sudans, but also how he, as a South Sudanese, regarded his colleagues to the north: Would Sudan’s lengthy and bitter civil war inhibit interactions between intellectuals in the two countries?Would the contested notion ofwhat it means to be “Sudanese” affect (or even undermine) any collaborative undertaking? On a more personal note, what had he experienced as a southern Sudanese that might shape his view of Sudan studies? Our conversation, carried out with the ease and comfort of modern communications, received a frightening reality check when, in the middle of December 2013, South Sudan plunged into violence as soldiers loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar challenged the national army units of President Salva Kiir Mayardit. For a period of several days, Samson Wassara lay in hiding with his family as bullets and rockets flew overhead; the interview forgotten, my thoughts were for his safety. Thankfully, he and his family were spared, even as many other South Sudanese fell victim to what may be only the first round of violence. As some semblance of normalcy returned to Juba, Professor Wassara was able to respond to my last set of questions. Here, then, is a transcript of our conversation; I hope it may continue into the years ahead.

Religion. Daniel J. Schroeter. The Sultan's Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. xxii + 240 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

more strides will suffice for them to cross the threshold beyond which a patiently rigged stage set will disclose its soaring canopy, valances, panels, and gleaming swatches of rich cloth suspended and parted to reveal the initiate costumed as her oricha. Browns leap across the Atlantic from the pseudohistorical, prototypical palace of Obakoso (aka Chango) to the local throne room communally prepared to receive a new daughter of the goddess of the sea into the Lucumf religion is followed by another happy speculation. Omi Tomi is a seamstress who had sewn imported fabrics for Lydia Cabreras grandmother and presumably also for other privileged colonial women, as well as for statues of Catholic saints on the occasion of their feasts. Surely her needle and thread had also put together festive costumes for dignitaries of cabildos, auxiliary Catholic associations which painstakingly evolved into casas de ocha, the basic units of creolized Yoruba/Lucumi religion. A halfcentury later their accoutrements continue to reflect Oddedeis visionary palace and Omi Tomis amalgamated patterns.