News & Events

The conference on the Future of the African City, held on 24 January 2019 at Leiden University, brought together different perspectives on the possibilities and problems of African cities, by excellent keynote speakers and a committed Societal Advisory Council of the African Studies Centre Leiden. The conference was co-organized with African Architecture Matters and featured the presentation of the first copy of the Ng'ambo Atlas to the Ambassador of Tanzania in the Netherlands. Read the keynote lectures, watch the pics!

The editors of Nature Conservation in Southern Africa. Morality and Marginality: Towards Sentient Conservation?, viz. Jan-Bart Gewald, Marja Spierenburg & Harry Wels, were interviewed for Psychology Today by Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado. The interview has been selected as an 'essential read' by Psychology Today. Marc Bekoff calls it a 'groundbreaking book'.

The unknown Van Gogh is not a publication about the discovery of another yet unknown work by Vincent van Gogh, but a biography of Cornelis (Cor) van Gogh (1867-1900) by Chris Schoeman. Cornelis was Vincent’s youngest brother, who was raised in the Netherlands, but worked, married and died in South Africa. The unknown Van Gogh is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

The ASCL is increasingly focusing attention on urbanisation in Africa, organising two major events in the coming weeks that deal with the African city: the conference ‘The future of the African City’ on 24 January (co-organised with African Architecture Matters); and the ASCL seminar ‘Before Johannesburg; a newly discovered Tswana city from around AD 1800’ by Prof. Karim Sadr (University of Witwatersrand) on 31 January.

We are happy to announce that the Knowledge Platform INCLUDE will continue working towards making Africa more inclusive. The ASCL is part of the Secretariat of INCLUDE, together with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and The Broker. Six years after its initiation, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has granted INCLUDE a new subsidy to support its efforts in policy making for inclusive development.

Many ASCL / Leiden University researchers are (co)organizing panels for the European Conference on African Studies, to be held in Edinburgh 11-14 June 2019. This year's overall theme is: 'Africa: Connections and Disruptions'. Check out the list of panels that invite paper proposals. Deadline: 21 January!