The African Studies Centre Leiden is the only multidisciplinary academic knowledge institute in the Netherlands devoted entirely to the study of Africa. It has an excellent library that is open to the general public. The ASCL is an interfaculty institute of Leiden University.
The ASCL is thrilled that South African professor Lungisile Ntsebeza will receive an honorary doctorate on the Foundation Day of Leiden University, 7 February. Ntsebeza is an authority in the democratisation of rural South Africa and poverty reduction. Ntsebeza has been Professor of Sociology and African Studies at the University of Cape Town since 2008, where he is also Director of the Centre of African Studies. Ntsebeza was imprisoned for five years during apartheid. While imprisoned, he obtained, by correspondence, his degree in Political Science and Philosophy. We congratulate Prof. Ntsebeza, his family and colleagues!
This is the story of the intricate connection between the Old Dutch Masters, early nature research, an unhappy marriage, media, commercial interest and wildlife conservation in Africa; it’s a journey through time! Read Marcel Rutten's contribution to the ASCL Africanist Blog.
The winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2019 is Nsima Udo for his thesis Visualising the body: photographic clues and the cultural fluidity of Mbopo institution, 1914 – 2014. Nsima Udo graduated cum laude for the MA in History at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. His thesis unpacks the history of mbopo, a form of female initiation in Southern Nigeria: how it emerges historically, is discredited in the 1990s as a form of female mutilation and is re-appreciated in recent reality TV shows.
In the 1960s, there was an African ambition to build modern states based on ‘national development’. But in the late 1980s, national development was dismissed - in most cases under compulsion from the international financial institutions. And without national development project, there are really no states in Africa, Rahmane Idrissa writes, only regimes. In the Sahel, this paved the way for the establishment of the ‘Islamic state’. Read the latest blog post!
This conference will bring together some of today’s most influential thinkers on African affairs. Independence from colonial rule, to many, was a turning point in African history, but what has changed, and what has persisted? Confirmed speakers: Lungisile Ntsebeza (African Studies, University of Cape Town), Birgit Meyer (Religious Studies, Utrecht University), Carolyn Hamilton (Archive and Public Culture, UCT) and Jan Abbink (ASCL, Leiden University). The conference is organized in the framework of Africa 2020.
