News & Events

The Kapsiki of Cameroon know him as Zra Kangacé, for others he is Wouter van Beek. From 1972 onwards Van Beek, retired research fellow at the ASCL, has done anthropological fieldwork among the Kapsiki and Higi (North Cameroon/North-Eastern Nigeria). Recently, Van Beek received a very special gift.

On 30 June the SCOLMA Conference 2025, entitled Through the Generations: Youth, Ageing and African Studies Collections, took place in Oxford. It was a day filled with discussions around the role of the youth in the future of African collections. The African Library’s Pepler Head visited the conference.

Grâce Ndjako, philosopher, author and translator, will explore the impact of African anti-colonial critique during the seminar on 6 November. She will explore the impact of African anti‑colonial critique, raising the question of whether Western universal principles like René Descartes’ radical doubt are truly applied globally.