Thousands of shellac records, spinning at 78 rotations per minute, were shared across North Africa after the invention and popularisation of the phonograph, in the late nineteenth century. These records span a dazzling variety of popular, classical, and folkloric sounds, sketches, and monologues.
Many of these recordings faded from public memory amidst decolonisation, migration, and the shift to vinyl. Since 2017, Chris Silver’s Gharamophone archive has unearthed and preserved nearly 500 of these “lost” recordings, offering insight into a complex era of history and transformation.
The event will journey through this expansive archive and draw on Silver’s book Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music across Twentieth-Century North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2022), which explores North Africa’s Jewish musical heritage — deeply intertwined with Muslim cultural life — and the legacies of colonialism, collaboration, resistance, and displacement.
Christopher Silver is the Segal Family Associate Professor in Jewish History and Culture in the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University. He is also the founder and curator of the website Gharamophone.com, a digital archive of North African records from the first half of the twentieth century.
This is a ticketed hybrid event: whether you attend in person or online, you’ll need to book a ticket.
