News & Events

Robert Okello (Development Studies, International Institute of Social Studies) is the winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2022. He wrote his thesis on the legal empowerment of rural women through digital technology in Northern Uganda. His thesis was partly inspired by the experiences of his mother with the Ugandan legal system.

On 5 February 1994, Nigerian painter and sculptor Odinigwe Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu, better known as Ben Enwonwu, died in Lagos at the age of 76. Arguably one of the most influential African artists of the 20th century, his pioneering career opened the way for the postcolonial proliferation and increased visibility of modern African art.  Enwonwu crater on the planet Mercury is named in his honour.

On 27 January 2020, Tunisian Internet activist, blogger and lecturer in linguistics at Tunis University Lina Ben Mhenni died at the age of 36 after a long battle with lupus, an auto-immune disease. She is internationally recognised for her work during the 2011 Tunisian revolution.

The Africa Thesis Award committee is happy to announce that the winner of the 2022 Award is Robert Okello (MA Development Studies, International Institute of Social Studies) for his thesis on rural women’s legal empowerment through digital technology in Northern Uganda. Congrats Robert!

On 23 February Etienne le Rossignol (Université de Namur) will kick off the ASCL Seminar Series 2023. Le Rossignol will talk about his research on the origins of moral universalism while looking at transhumant pastoralism - a livelihood in which populations seasonally migrate and herd livestock.

On 18 January 2017, South African-born novelist Peter Henry Abrahams Deras, commonly known as Peter Abrahams, died in Kingston, Jamaica, at the age of 97. His death is considered to have been murder.

The ASCL library has recently acquired a book on the Comoros islands’ history, written by Iain Walker. It traces the unique culture of these islands, from their first settlement by Africans, Arabs and Austronesians, through their heyday within the greater Swahili world and their decline as a forgotten outpost of the French colonial empire.

In Niger, the world’s least educated nation, girls are described as both vulnerable beings in need of protection and as subjects imbued with unique potential, including the capacity to transform their country’s fortunes. This contradiction is the topic of the ASCL Seminar by Adeline Masquelier on 20 April.  

On 9 January 1933, British-South African novelist Wilbur Smith was born in Ndola in what is now Zambia. He specialised in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries. He also wrote a series of historical novels that are based in Ancient Egypt during Pharaoh Memnon's reign.

In 1793, Fulani scholar, poet and educator Nana Asma’u was born in a village called Degel in what is now Northern Nigeria. She was in particular devoted to the education of women. Her Yan Taru, a programme aimed at making education accessible to all, especially women, continues into the 21st century.