News & Events

Just more than 60 years ago Barthélémy Boganda, ‘father’ of the Central African Republic, met a premature death in an air crash (29 March 1959). In a new ASC Working Paper, Klaas van Walraven investigates the possibility of long-term causation in the political history of the Central African Republic by looking at the biography of Barthélémy Boganda. He argues that the upheavals of European colonisation at the beginning of the twentieth century, as experienced by Boganda as a child, exercised an enduring influence on his persona and remained relevant for his life and work throughout the later part of the colonial era.

Michel R. Doortmont, coordinator of the research programme 'Society and Change in Northern Ghana: Dagomba, Gonja, and the Regional Perspective on Ghanaian History', has been awarded the 2019 ASA Service Award by the American African Studies Association (ASA). He receives the award together with his colleagues Jan Jansen (Leiden University), Dmitri van den Bersselaar (University of Leipzig) and John Hanson (Indiana University) in their role as editors of the scientific journal History in Africa.

Les études déjà anciennes de Lebeuf Jean-Paul (1938, 1939, 1948, 1970, 1973) et de Lebeuf Annie (1969), (archéologie / anthropologie) ont mis à jour à Makary une mythologie extrêmement originale, qui ne repose pour l’instant que sur des traductions en français.  Celle-ci vise à rechercher les traces cette mythologie dans un corpus en langue originale. Il s’agit d’une vingtaine de contes kotoko de Makary sélectionnés en vue d’une édition scientifique (texte original, analyse interlinéaire, traduction française et notes linguistiques et anthropologiques).

Proverbs are held in high esteem in African societies, as are the people, often elderly, who know many and are able to apply them appropriately and convincingly. To mark the Year of Indigenous Languages, the ASCL Library has compiled a web dossier on proverbs in African languages. It also includes a Wikidata Map, indicating geolocated topics co-occurring with African proverbs as main subjects. Check out the web dossier!

'A few years ago, we could not have imagined writing this blog'. ASCL researchers Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk have done research in the Sahel for decades. 'We do not hesitate to use the word Talibanization to describe the process underway.' De Bruijn and Van Dijk observe that the internationalization of the conflict might ultimately lead to (...)  the birth of a new Islamic Caliphate in the Sahel. Read their blog.