News & Events

On the occasion of the exhibition 'Slavery' at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, opened by King Willem-Alexander on 18 May, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on the Indian Ocean slave trade. The dossier consists of selected titles from the ASCL Library Catalogue, extended with sources available through the broader Leiden University Library collection. The dossier is introduced by Rijksmuseum curator Maria Holtrop. Read the web dossier.

Marleen Dekker, Professor of Inclusive Development in Africa, became director of the African Studies Centre Leiden on 1 April 2021. In this interview she talks about the impact of COVID-19 and lockdowns on the progress in poverty reductions in Africa, considering to do fieldwork with adjusted protocols in countries that have no mobility restrictions, and the societal role academics have to play. 'The idea that Africa is not a country is gaining ground'. Read the interview.

Set in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) of the late 1800s, A sin of omission follows the story of a black South African Anglican deacon, Stephen (Malusie) Mzamane, who has to journey to his mother’s rural home to inform her of his elder brother’s death. A sin of omission is one of six titles which were shortlisted for the Walter Scott Award 2020. The author, Marguerite Poland, who spent her own formative years in the Eastern Cape, is the recipient of two national Lifetime Achievement Awards for English literature. A Sin of Omission is the subject of our Library Highlight.

Rahmane Idrissa wrote an article about the death of Chad’s late president Idriss Déby from a historical perspective for Sidecar, the blog of New Left Review. 'What did France gain in tirelessly propping up a dictator against the aspirations of his people? Such interests are at first sight hard to perceive. They are certainly not economic.'

Duncan Money and Limin Teh wrote an annotated bibliography for JSTOR Daily about race and the organisation of labour from a global perspective. It charts the global history of race and labour in the early twentieth century, highlighting the complex ways in which race, labour, and imperialism intersect. The article is available open access.

Dieudo Hamadi belongs to a new generation of contemporary African filmmakers. Born in 1984 in Kisangani, the Democratic Republic of Congo is still his home. Initially studying medicine, he later learned filmmaking through various documentary and editing workshops in Brussels and Paris. Hamadi now has his own production company, Kiripifilms. The ASCL Library recently acquired his two most recent documentary films. They are the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

For his research project focusing on the governance of security in informal urban settlements in Luanda, Angola, PhD candidate Antonio Frank travelled to Luanda in 2017 to make a documentary. In the slums he met young artists who make a living from selling their art and in other innovative ways, thereby influencing the neighbourhoods in a positive way. These young artists set a good example for other young people, showing them an alternative to a violent or criminal way of life.

The ASCL Library recently acquired three books that constitute interesting sources for the colonial history of the Equatorial region. All three involve writings by Alfons Vermeulen, an employee of the ‘Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels-Vennootschap’ (NAHV), the Dutch trading house active in the wider Congo region in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. Vermeulen's memoirs have now been published, edited and annotated by a member of his family, Fred van den Hoek. ASCL researcher Klaas van Walraven wrote a paper about these acquisitions.

Registration for the two Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) minors that the ASCL co-organises will be open until 15 April. The minors African Dynamics and Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development are accessible for third-year bachelor students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam. These are selection minors: only 40 students can be accommodated per minor. Registration for both minors will close on 15 April 2021. NB On registering for these minors, a message will pop up indicating that the course is full and you will be placed on a waiting list. Please ignore this message and continue with your registration! The selections will be made after registration has closed (deadline: 15 April).

Global media discussion and policy responses to the armed conflict in Tigray Region, Ethiopia, are marked by bias and incompleteness in information sources and gaps in contextual understanding. In this paper (2nd edition) Jon Abbink analyses the emerging Atlantic discourse and some of its assumptions