News & Events

ASC senior researcher Jon Abbink wrote an article for the Journal of Eastern African Studies about the recent Muslim protest movement in Ethiopia and the response to it by the government in the light of the secular state model. While the challenges to it also extend to the large Christian community in Ethiopia, the problems became prominent mainly in the case of the Muslims, who contest perceived 'government interference' in their community life.

On 23 September, Iva Peša will defend her PhD thesis Moving along the roadside: A social history of Mwinilunga District, 1870s-1970s, at Leiden University. This thesis aims to understand how the process of social change has been negotiated in the area of Mwinilunga, a district in the north-west of Zambia, between the 1870s and the 1970s. It looks at the process of social change by tackling four aspects in detail: production, mobility, consumption and social relationships.

Jo Jordan describes herself as one of those who would rather “hear the flatulence of camels than the prayers of the fishes”. This perfectly sets the tone of the book she writes about her life and the adventures she has travelling through Africa’s vast geography and cultures. Inspired by a grainy black and white film of an overland journey across the Sahara to Nigeria and stumbling across a small ad in the Observer announcing an 18-week overland trip to South Africa, the author left 'swinging sixties' London behind and never looked back.

The African Studies Centre and Community mourn the loss of Joep Lange. Joep Lange was one of the world’s most prominent HIV-AIDS researchers and academic activists, who died in the crash that followed the attack on Malaysian Airways Flight 17 in Ukraine, on July 17, 2014. Joep Lange’s work has been very important for the fight against HIV-AIDS in Africa and elsewhere and many Africans still live decent lives thanks to his tireless efforts. Joep Lange was chair of the International AIDS Society, co-founder of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health And Development, of Pharmaccess and of the Health Insurance Fund.

The South African writer Nadine Gordimer has died on 13 July, in Johannesburg, at the age of 90. Nadine Gordimer was born on 20 November 1923 in the small East Rand mining town of Springs, the daughter of Jewish immigrants. She published her first story - Come Again Tomorrow - in a Johannesburg magazine at just 15 years of age. She continued to write more than 30 books. In 1974 Gordimer won the Booker Prize for The Conservationist and she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991. The Nobel committee honoured Gordimer for her "great, epic writings centering on the effects of race relations in her country", which had been "of very great benefit to humanity".

The African Studies Centre's Annual Report for 2013 is out now! In addition to an excellent list of publications by our researchers and our well-attended seminars, you will find other highlights such as the launch of LeidenGlobal in November and the ASC's Annual Lecture by Morten Jerven. Read the Annual Report online or order a hard copy.

A vibrant new exhibition is on display in the ASC corridors on the 3rd floor and in the ASC Library on the ground floor. Tyler Dolan is a South African photographer specializing in hyper realism that results in colourful imagery. His ‘Walking The Streets’ project documents the various traditions and cultures that reside on the streets of Durban, South Africa. As he writes in the accompanying book: ‘All cities have many sounds and many different kinds of people. (...) We see the street people, we think we know where they come from but we truthfully don’t. This project is about showcasing these people living their everyday lives.’ The exhibition is organised in cooperation with Afrovibes.