News & Events

PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog wrote a blog about the military ties between African ruling parties and North Korea. His paper identifies three eras in which African political elites benefited from military ties to the DPRK. The blog was written for the Africa and International Studies blog series and is a summary of the paper for which he was awarded the British International Studies Association African Affairs Postgraduate Paper Prize 2021. 

Soon after the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, warnings have been shared about the collateral damage that could soon follow in terms of disturbed food markets, particularly in Africa. A number of African countries have become major importers of wheat and corn from Russia and Ukraine. Food price increases may lead to hunger, food riots, and other disturbances, writes Ton Dietz in the ASCL Africanist Blog.

ASCL PhD candidate Tycho van der Hoog is one of the twelve new Faces of Science. Faces of Science is a project of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), The Young Academy and NEMO Science Museum. Young scientists give people a glimpse into their research and their lives as scientists via blogs, vlogs, video clips, articles and lectures. Van der Hoog's research project deals with the links between North Korea and southern Africa.

On the occasion of the Rwanda book exhibition, that was opened at the African Studies Centre Leiden on 31 March 2022, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier that presents all publications displayed at the exhibition. The publication titles link to the corresponding record in the online catalogue. The dossier is introduced by Elvire Eijkman and concludes with a selection of relevant websites. Read the web dossier.

Over 170 publications were acquired for the ASCL Library during a trip to Zimbabwe. A number of pictorial works, biblical and historical books, as well as an extensive and fairly representative selection of textbooks written in conformity to the new Zimbabwean curriculum, were bought. Read all about it in the Library Highlight!

Are you looking for a master's programme offering you in-depth knowledge about different aspects of Africa? Find out all about the master's and research master's programmes in African Studies during the Master's Open Day on Thursday 10 March! Online presentations on the Master and Research Master African Studies will be given from 15.30-16.30. 

Fighting with words can be as harmful as fighting with swords. Polemics of religion, identity or politics often precede or are cotemporaneous with physical violence. Similarly, in reconciliation and cooperation, speech in all its expressive forms is an essential resource. The 25th NVAS Annual Conference on 9 and 10 December 2022 will bring together specialists from different fields of studies to discuss the dual functions of language in social relations. Deadline for panel and paper proposals: 1 May.

Staff of the ASCL Library undertake yearly acquisition trips to African countries. These trips are very important for ensuring the diversity of the collection. In September 2021, the ASCL team was able to travel to Rwanda, a country that had not been visited before. A selection of the items that were collected then, will be on display in the ASCL Library. The exhibition will be opened on 31 March by ASCL researcher and Associate Professor Lidewyde Berckmoes.

We are deeply saddened by the news that Professor Kassahun Berhanu Alemu of Addis Ababa University (AAU) passed away on 22 February 2022. Prof. Kassahun was a visiting fellow at the African Studies Centre Leiden twice (in 1999 and 2009) and a fellow of the ASCL Community. He was well-known among the wider Ethiopian public for his many appearances in the media and his thoughtful contributions to public debates on Ethiopian affairs.

The ASCL is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Kofi Dorvlo in February 2022. Dr Dorvlo was a LeidenASA visiting fellow at Leiden University in 2019, the same university where he had obtained his PhD in 2008. His doctoral research, funded by the Endangered Languages Programme of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), focused on the documentation of Logba, one of the fourteen Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages spoken by approximately 7,500 speakers on the Southeastern frontier of the Ghana-Togo border.