News & Events

Comic strips and cartoons form a perhaps small, yet highly relevant part of the ASCL Library. Many African cartoons and comic strips act as a societal watchdog by holding their leaders responsible for their actions, writes Drs. Ogo Ubabukoh, publisher of Kata Kata African Cartoons, in his introduction to our new web dossier. The dossier contains an overview of all comic strips and cartoons as well as literature on these subjects available in the Library.

What is it like to be a civil servant in Nigeria? Among the books collected during the ASCL library’s acquisition trip of last year to Nigeria are some (auto)biographical documents about working in the Nigerian civil service. They draw a picture not only of the civil service, but also of the political, economic and home circumstances of the times described. Two of them, Memoirs of mixed blessings (2009) and Living the dream (2015), are the focus of our latest Library Highlight.

The Anglophone regions in Cameroon, the North West and South West, have experienced violent clashes in recent months following plans of the government to impose the use of French language in schools and courts. Protests have led to a shutdown of the Internet in these regions. ASCL Community fellow Francis Nyamnjoh (member of the editorial board of Langaa Publishers) compiled a list of relevant books providing background to the crisis. Almost all publications are available in the ASCL Library.

The Africa Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies AEGIS fully supports the ASA colleagues in the USA and share their great worries on the anti-immigration policies. They are profoundly opposed to policies or actions that exclude or inhibit students and scholars from undertaking learning, teaching or research on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability or place of birth. They published a statement, in which they also speak on behalf of the 34 African Studies centres in Europe and of thousands of Africanist scholars all over Europe.

This new article by Akinyinka Akinyoade, Chikbuike Uche and guest researcher Ogbuagu Ekumankama investigates attempts by Nigerian Breweries (a subsidiary of Heineken) to increase its use of local raw materials for beer brewing. It argues that the greatest threat to this initiative has been inconsistent Nigerian Government policies, especially with respect to promoting the cultivation of local raw materials such as sorghum, replacing imported barley.