Persons of Courage and Renown is a theoretically engaged ethnography by a social/cultural anthropologist that explores issues of culture, memory, creativity, and power by analyzing beloved, yet vulnerable, actors, acting, and play performances in Tamajaq-speaking, predominantly Muslim, traditionally stratified, and semi-nomadic Tuareg communities in northern Mali. The town and region of Kidal are the primary sites of field research. This book traces how Tuareg actors powerfully negotiate cultural memory and encounters in communities caught, between political violence and peacekeeping efforts in northern Mali. Urban, state, and nongovernmental bureaucracies there seek to reshape Tuareg verbal art performances to comply with official agendas aimed at transforming local culture. This book shows how acting and plays are crucial in continuing, but also debating and redefining, the meanings of older verbal art performances of Tuareg tales, songs, and epics, as well as wider cultural knowledge and social practice. Their arts offer important possibilities for peacemaking in a turbulent and unpredictable world.

“Rasmussen has written a richly detailed and compelling study of Tuareg theater in northern Mali and Niger. She skillfully weaves together the aesthetic, social, and political dimensions of these performances and gives us a rare insight into the lives and artistic practices of the actors who bring the plays to life.” -- Mary Jo Arnoldi, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Susan Rasmussen examines a new form of theatrical performances to skilfully provide a rare insight into the verbal art of Tuareg society. * Journal Of The Royal Anthropological Institute *

Susan Rasmussen is professor of anthropology in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston.