ASCL Newsletter December 2016

African Studies Centre Leiden Newsletter, No. 22, December 2016
ASCL Highlight

Upcoming exhibition: 'Neither Black Nor White revisited'

This exhibition is initiated by Studio Kurtycz. Studio Kurtycz was created in Paris in 2002 by the artists Anna Kurtycz (Mexico-Poland) and RUDEK (The Netherlands). From 2008 until 2015, Studio Kurtycz was located in West Africa, developing projects in interaction with the local population and local artists. This exhibition is a compilation of all those human interactions that inspired Studio Kurtycz in West Africa.

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Research news

Deadline Call for Papers ECAS conference: 19 January

The Call for Papers for the 7th European Conference on African Studies (Basel, 29 June–1 July 2017) is open! Scholars in African Studies are invited to propose papers to the panel(s) of their choice. Deadline is 19 January 2017. This year's theme: 'Urban Africa - Urban Africans: New encounters of the rural and the urban'. We created an overview of the Leiden related panels.

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Benjamin Soares appointed professor at University of Florida, Gainesville

Benjamin Soares has accepted a professorship at the University of Florida in Gainesville, USA, as per 1 January. Benjamin is a scholar of Islam and muslim societies in Africa. He started working at the African Studies Centre in Leiden in 2003. Since 2015 he is also Professor (by special appointment) of the Anthropology of Islam in Africa and its Diaspora at the University of Amsterdam.

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Jan-Bart Gewald and Leonor Faber-Jonker contribute to exhibition in Paris about genocide on Herero and Nama

Jan-Bart Gewald and Leonor Faber-Jonker have contributed to the exhibition 'Le premier génocide du XXe siècle: Herero et Nama dans le Sud-Ouest africain allemand, 1904-1908' in Paris. It deals with the genocide on Herero and Nama in German South West Africa (current Namibia) at the start of the 20th century. The expo can be seen at the Mémorial de la Shoah until 12 March 2017.

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News from the knowledge platform INCLUDE

INCLUDE organized a roundtable on Productive Employment on 15 December at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. International researchers, Platform members, representatives from NGOs, businesses and policy stakeholders gathered to discuss: what sectors can best create productive employment? How can entrepreneurs create more jobs? Check out the multimedia report!

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New publications

Stephen Ellis Bibliography

The ASCL Library has published a bibliography of Stephen Ellis (1953-2015), who was an extremely productive researcher. Ellis published some 20 books and more than 130 scholarly articles. The bibliography starts with an introduction by Jos Damen (head of the ASCL Library) and contains a list of publications: books, articles & book chapters, book reviews, blogs, press articles and interviews.

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Bridging the gap between bird conservation and sustainable development. Perceptions and participation of rural people in Burkina Faso's Sahel region

The main objectives of the PhD dissertation by Michiel van den Bergh are to uncover the local values of birds, the environment and conservation for rural people in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, and to increase insights into interventions that aim to achieve integrated (migrant bird) conservation and sustainable development objectives in this area.

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Transmission of Kapsiki-Higi folktales over two generations: tales that come, tales that go

This study by Wouter van Beek on Kapsiki-Higi tales compares two corpuses of stories collected over two generations. In this oral setting, folktales appear much more dynamic than usually assumed, depending on genre, performance and the memory characteristics of the tales themselves. In northeastern Nigeria the author collected these tales twice with a time gap of two generations.

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Library news

New Library Highlight: The last flight

The Last Flight is the autobiography of Captain August Okpe, founding member of the Nigerian Air Force, active air combatant in the Biafran Air Force (BAF) and, later, chief pilot of Nigeria Airways and director of Air Accident Investigation at the Federal Ministry of Aviation. This recent library acquisition is the first book by a Nigerian author describing the Nigerian-Biafran air war.

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Final day: winter sale in our online bookshop!

Still looking for Christmas presents? The ASCL online bookshop offers 50% discount on all used books until Tuesday 20 December! Visit the ASCL bookshop, use the discount code SO2016.

LeidenASA News

Leiden African Studies Assembly Annual Meeting

The Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA) held its second Annual Meeting on Thursday 8 December. Leiden University has some 120 scholars who work on Africa-related research. Sada Mire, Assistant Professor in Archaeology, gave a lecture about the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the African Past. Mirjam de Bruijn and Ton Dietz presented the plans for LeidenASA, and the Africa Thesis Award 2016 was handed over to its winner, Tanja Hendriks.

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ASCL Community News

PhD defence and new publications

Community member Jos van Beurden successfully defended his PhD thesis Treasures in Trusted Hand. Negotiating the future of colonial cultural objects at VU University Amsterdam. Plus: new publications!

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marieke on RTL
ASCL in the media

Article by Robtel Neajai Pailey shortlisted for African Arguments 2016 Prize

African Arguments has shortlisted an article by Robtel Neajai Pailey, keynote speaker at our seminar "Where is the African in 'African' Studies?" (31 May) for the African Arguments 2016 Prize. You can vote for Robtel's article until 27 December! 

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Other news

Blog by Mirjam de Bruijn: 'Cameroon alert!'

In West Cameroon, a strike by lawyers has been evolving into a general strike among teachers and, finally, protests in several towns that were met with State violence. What is the background?

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Blog by Catherine Wilson on DR Congo: 'Chronicle of an uprising foretold'

On 19 December, President Kabila’s mandate officially and constitutionally came to an end. Everyone is awaiting whether the president will step down or not, writes Catherina Wilson of the Connecting in Times of Duress research project. Meanwhile tensions are high and on the rise.

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Looking for country-specific news? Visit our Country Portal

Wether you want to follow the events in DR Congo, in Cameroon, or in any other African country for that matter: the ASCL Country Portal offers an overview of tweets, news headlines, statistics and other sources of information per country. An unmissable source! 

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Highlight Africa

27-28 February, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: Workshop 'Emergence' on Screen and on Stage

CODESRIA invites artists, scholars and practitioners to reflect on the trope of 'emergence' on screen and on stage in Africa. 'Emergence' has come to dominate discussions of political economy in Africa. Whether styled as ‘plan(s) emergeant’ in many francophone countries or dressed in slogans like ‘A better Ghana,’ the ‘Cameroon of Greater Achievements’ or the ‘African renaissance’, the idea of rising out of an abyss into a place and time of glory has come to play multiple roles in African life. Artists, scholars, film and theatre practitioners are invited to send in a paper for this workshop. Deadline: 27 December.

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