News & Events

The African Studies Centre Leiden is deeply saddened by the news that its former colleague and board member of the Netherlands Association of African Studies (NVAS) Karin Willemse passed away in Leiden on 18 March 2023. Karin was a driving force in propagating African Studies in the Netherlands. 

On 25 March 2019, Nigerian poet and novelist Gabriel Imomotimi Okara died at the age of 97 in Yenagoa, Nigeria. The first modernist poet of Anglophone Africa, he is best known for his early experimental novel, The Voice (1964), and his award-winning poetry, published in The Fisherman's Invocation (1978).

Registration for the two Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) minors that the ASCL co-organises is now open! It concerns the minor African Dynamics and the minor Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development. The minors are accessible for third-year bachelor students from the three universities.

On 17 March 2015, Nigerien filmmaker and educator Moustapha Alassane died at the age of 73 in Ouagadougou. He was not only a pioneer of Nigerien and African cinema but also the first African to direct animated films.

Scatterlings: a novel tells the story of a multiracial family in South Africa at the time when the Immorality Act of 1927 is passed. In the end the family is torn apart, culminating in one of the protagonists doing something terrible. Scatterlings is Rešoketšwe Manenzhe's debut novel. 

Air pollution is the second largest cause of death in Africa and air pollution-related costs are high. Vulnerable groups face higher risks and environmental injustice hampers achievement of inclusive development. Marleen Dekker and Agnieszka Kazimierczuk participated in a workshop on a pilot design for air quality in Africa. 

Studium Generale en het ASCL bieden in april en mei lezingen aan die inzicht geven in ontwikkelingen in Afrika. Thema's zijn o.a. migratie, de diversiteit van de islam, Afrikaanse talen en literatuur, de mogelijke relatie tussen diamantwinning en het uitsterven van soorten, en de link tussen Afrika en Noord-Korea.

On 8 March 2021, Guinean historian, playwright, and short story writer Djibril Tamsir Niane died in Dakar at the age of 89. Niane is probably best known for introducing the West African epic 'Sunjata' to the rest of Africa and the world at large.

In this book you will meet several individuals and families who experienced war and displacement during the civil war in northern Uganda (1986-2006). Based on ethnographic field research and specifically life histories, the book draws attention to their experiences and links these to broader analyses about ‘post-conflict’ society.

On 26 February 1948, Nigerian filmmaker Tunde Kelani, popularly known as TK, was born in Lagos. In a career spanning more than four decades, TK specialises in producing movies that promote Nigeria's rich cultural heritage and have a root in documentation, archiving, education, entertainment and promotion of the culture.