News & Events

Benjamin Soares has accepted a professorship at the University of Florida in Gainesville, USA, as per 1 January. Benjamin is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa. He started working at the African Studies Centre in Leiden in 2003. Since 2015 he is also Professor (by special appointment) of the Anthropology of Islam in Africa and its Diaspora at the University of Amsterdam. We wish Benjamin all the best of luck in his new position!

This study on Kapsiki-Higi tales compares two corpuses of stories collected over two generations. In this oral setting, folktales appear much more dynamic than usually assumed, depending on genre, performance and the memory characteristics of the tales themselves. ASCL senior researcher Wouter van Beek collected these tales in Northeastern Nigeria twice, with a time gap of two generations, in order to assess the dynamics of this oral transmission. 

The Last Flight is the autobiography of Captain August Okpe, founding member of the Nigerian Air Force, active air combatant in the Biafran Air Force (BAF) and, later, chief pilot of Nigeria Airways and director of Air Accident Investigation at the Federal Ministry of Aviation. This recent library acquisition is the first book by a Nigerian author describing the Nigerian-Biafran air war. It is illustrated with more than a hundred photos, operational maps, secret codes and a sample of a mercenary pilot contract. It is the subject of our latest Library Highlight!

The Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA) held its second Annual Meeting on Thursday 8 December. Leiden University has some 120 scholars who work on Africa-related research. Sada Mire, Assistant Professor in Archaeology, gave a lecture about the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the African Past. Mirjam de Bruijn and Ton Dietz presented the plans that are being explored for LeidenASA, and the Africa Thesis Award 2016 was presented to its winner, Tanja Hendriks.

Looking for Christmas presents? The ASCL online bookshop offers 50% discount on all used books until 20 December 2016. On offer are e.g. historical books on South Africa, the African Writers Series, poetry of Elisabeth Eybers, biographies on Ian Smith and Morgan Tsvangirai, and studies on religion, land reform, economics and politics in many African countries. Visit the ASCL bookshop, use the discount code SO2016.

The new exhibition at the ASCL consists mostly of graphic work and is initiated by Studio Kurtycz. From 2008 until 2015, Studio Kurtycz was located in West Africa, developing projects in interaction with the local population and local artists. Subjects related to gender, migration, tolerance, corruption and uniformity. The exhibition can be seen on the 3rd floor and in the ASCL library (ground floor) in the Pieter de la Court building.