Nuer Wisdom: Preserving the Past – Empowering the Future

Sharon Hutchinson

206 Ingraham Hall
@ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
https://africa.wisc.edu/event/nuer-wisdom-preserving-the-past-empowering-the-future/

Sharon E. Hutchinson is Professor Emerita of Anthropology and African Studies at UW-Madison and the author of Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War, and the State and many other scholarly publications. Her professional commitment to research and document the culture history of the Nuer (Naath) people of South Sudan and Ethiopia has endured for more than 45 years. After retiring from UW-Madison, she served part-time for several years as an adjunct full Professor of Social Anthropology on the faculty of Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.   After leaving that position to embrace the freedom of full retirement, she has endeavored to preserve and promote the rich cultural and linguistic heritage of all South Sudanese, wherever they may reside, through a novel series of publication projects.  Focusing initially on the Nuer language, she established an independent publishing company in 2023, whose mission is to high-quality paperback books at prices affordable to South Sudanese populations worldwide as well as university and community libraries.  During its first year of operation, her company published four books, including a comprehensive Nuer grammar and a Nuer-English dictionary.