News & Events

The ASC Library has compiled a web dossier on Muslim Scholarship in Africa to coincide with a workshop on the same topic co-organized by LUCIS and the ASC on 23 April. The web dossier provides titles on Muslim intellectuals and religious experts that are available in the ASC Library and have been published in the past 10 years. The social and political aspects of Islam in contemporary Africa cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the role of Muslim intellectuals, both past and present.

During the ASC seminar on 8 June, Gregg Pascal Zachary from Arizona State University will describe the current shift from pure absorption of Euro-American digital technologies to the rise of home-grown, indigenous innovation activities in computing and communications in Africa. Drawing on case studies from Nairobi (mobile money) and Kampala (computer science research), Zachary will argue that the spread of Africanized digital technologies is having profoundly positive effects on African society, culture and material life. Please note: this seminar takes place next Monday!

ASC researcher Akinyinka Akinyoade was interviewed by EenVandaag television about Boko Haram on 13 April. It's been one year since Boko Haram kidnapped 200 girls. More than 1,5 million people have fled out of fear for the terrorist group's actions in northern Nigeria. The number of children that have fled has doubled to 800.000, as Unicef writes in a report.

Two PhD candidates that are closely related to the ASC, Angela Kronenburg García and Harrie Leyten, defended their PhD theses this week. Angela defended her thesis Contesting Control. Land and forest in the struggle for Loita Maasai self-government in Kenya at Wageningen University on 13 April. Harrie defended his thesis From idol to art. African 'objects with power': A challenge for missionaries, anthropologists and museum curators at Tilburg University on 15 April. His thesis has become a reflection of his long career.