News & Events

To mark Wikimania 2019 the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on Public art in Africa. Wikimania is the annual conference celebrating all the free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The dossier includes titles from the ASCL Library collection and the broader Leiden University Library collection, combined with an interactive Wikidata Map. This map shows the location of a work of public art in Africa, providing - when available - a photo and the (Wikipedia) article. Enjoy the web dossier!

In July, Nigeria, which is the largest economy in Africa, signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). With this development, Eritrea is now the only African country that has not acceded to the treaty. While signing the agreement, Nigeria’s President Buhari made it clear that the country was mainly concerned with ensuring that free trade should also be fair trade. Chibuike Uche was actually surprised by the speed with which most African countries endorsed AfCFTA. Read his latest blog post!

This book is based on Tycho van der Hoog’s master’s thesis ‘North Korean monuments in southern Africa: Legitimizing party rule through the National Heroes’ Acres in Zimbabwe and Namibia’, runner-up for the ASCL’s 2018 Africa Thesis Award. Scattered across southern Africa, impressive North Korean monuments celebrate the rise of young, independent nations. Freed from the shackles of colonialism or white settler rule, many southern African states are loyal customers of the North Korean state-owned enterprise Mansudae Art Studio, a firm responsible for the propaganda of the reigning Kim dynasty.

2020 is the year in which 17 countries on the African continent will celebrate 60 years of independence. The Africanists from Leiden University and its LDE-partners TU Delft and Erasmus University (united in ‘LeidenASA’, hosted by the ASCL) will organize 'Africa 2020', a year full of workshops, film screenings, peer coaching for PhD students, seminars and two large conferences: ‘Africa: 60 years of independence’ in January, and ‘Africa knows!’ in December 2020.