News & Events

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!