Quick Items: Mauritania Piece, African Studies Association Events

Two quick items that may interest readers:

• I have a piece up at Foreign Policy‘s Democracy Lab that examines Mauritanian politics during President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz’s absence from the country after his shooting (he returned home on Saturday). I look at what the episode tells us about civil-military relations and institutional gaps in the country.
• If you will be at the African Studies Association meeting this week in Philadelphia, please let me know. The program is here (.pdf). I will be part of three panels/roundtables. The first, on Thursday at 4:30, looks at blogging about Africa; Dr. Sean Jacobs and Dr. Neelika Jayawardane of Africa Is A Country and Dr. Laura Seay of Texas in Africa are the other participants. The second, on Friday at 4:30, is on conflict in the Sahel/Sahara, and was organized by Dr. Jacob Mundy of Colgate University. And the third, on Saturday at 4:30, examines Islamic universities in Africa and includes Dr. Ousmane Kane of Harvard and Dr. Mbaye Lo of Duke. If you will be speaking on a panel, please tell us in the comments. I hope to see some of you at the conference.