News & Events

Within the GROW Research Programme one more position opened for a PhD candidate with professor Janine Ubink (Leiden Law School) and professor Mayke Kaag (ASCL) and/or Chibuike Uche (ASCL). The ideal candidate has a proven interest in the relationship between law and society in Africa. 

Jan-Bart Gewald has written a new blog post for the Boom2Dust project, which investigates the environmental history of three industrial mining centres in southern Africa. In the article Prof. Gewald commemorates the death of the important Zambia-historian Andrew Roberts.

On 29 December 1923, Senegalese anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop was born in Thieytou, Senegal. He begun his education at a Quranic school. Later on, he traveled to Paris to study philosophy, art, chemistry, and nuclear physics.

The first Leiden Africa Platform (former Leiden ASA) Annual Meeting was held on 9 December 2024 at the Wereldmuseum Leiden, with a number of speakers and presentations by guests and Platform members. Invited guest Melle Leenstra, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stressed the need to connect with African interests and African realities.

Leiden University offers one full Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS) to an African candidate interested in the two-year Research Master African Studies, thus non-EEA/non-EFTA applicants. LExS is a prestigious scholarship and includes a fee waiver and a monthly allowance.

In the first ASCL Seminar of 2025, on 6 February, Florence Bernault (Sciences Po) will explore the history of containers in Central Africa. Prof. Bernault suggests that examining containers and capital in Central Africa can help us understand complex and hidden forms of modern capitalism. 

On 11 december 1906, Senegalese poet and storyteller Birago Diop was born. Diop's work restored general interest in African folktales and promoted him to one of the most outstanding African francophone writers.