News & Events

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.

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.

It is with profound sadness that the African Studies Centre Leiden has learned that Prof. Dr Bert Ingelaere passed away on 4 February 2022. Bert, Associate Professor at Antwerp University, was a highly respected member of our academic community, a collaborator on many occasions, and a dear friend. He will be remembered for his profound knowledge of the long-term effects of conflict in the African Great Lakes region.  

This month’s Library Highlight focuses on ‘De koerier van Maputo’ (The Courier of Maputo) by Jenne Jan Holtland. In this recently acquired Dutch-language non-fiction work by journalist Jenne Jan Holtland, the writer explores the surreal yet true story of Klaas de Jonge, a Dutch citizen who became involved in the armed struggle against Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, and who ended up spending over two years in diplomatic asylum in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria. Read the Highlight!

In the 1930s, sociologist and anthropologist Sjoerd Hofstra spent almost two years among Mende people in the small village of Panguma, Sierra Leone. Here he took hundreds of photos. The Hofstra photo collection, based at the ASCL library, was recently uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Providing access to this collection does much to balance African imagery that is often dominated by negative representations, argues library intern Cameron Stone. Read his blog!

Dr Akinyinka Akinyoade is the new chair of the ASCL Researchers' Assembly. Akinyoade took over from Prof. Jan Abbink during the meeting of 19 January, where Prof. Abbink was thanked warmly for his exemplary leadership of and commitment to the Assembly for many years. Among other things, Dr Akinyoade wants to consolidate the continuous gains of the ASCL Collaborative Research Groups.

African Studies MA alumna Femke van Zeijl has been nominated for the Volkskrant IISG Thesis Award 2021 for her thesis 'The Curious Case of Casa do Fernandez: Challenges of Heritage Management in Nigeria’. The thesis award of Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant and the International Institute of Social History is yearly presented to a student who has written an excellent thesis about a historical subject. Van Zeijl is one of three nominees; the winner will be announced on 24 March.

Due to illness, the ASCL seminar by Peace Medie has unfortunately been cancelled. We hope to come up with a new date for her seminar on the UN, the Women’s Movements, and Post-Conflict response to sexual violence as soon as possible. 

The Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA) held its Annual Meeting on 6 December 2021 – online, because of the COVID-19 restrictions. LeidenASA is the network of Leiden based Africanist researchers. A lively panel discussion focused on decolonising academic education and research.