News & Events

On Wednesday 27 November, the launch of LeidenGlobal will be celebrated in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde. LeidenGlobal is a platform for global expertise. Partners are: the African Studies Centre, the International Institute for Asian Studies, KITLV, the Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Roosevelt Study Centre and Leiden University.

Due to unforseen circumstances, the seminar on 3 December has been cancelled. The invited speaker, Dr. Abamfo Ofori Atiemo of the University of Ghana, will however be giving a presentation at Wednesday's (4 December) workshop: Modern State Administration and African Religious Cosmologies. The ASC apologizes for the inconvenience.

Doris Lessing, Nobel-prize winning author, died on 17 November aged 94. Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Iran, then called Persia, on 22 October 1919. In 1925, the family moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Her first novel,  The Grass is Singing (1950), takes place in Southern Rhodesia during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country (which was then a British colony). The novel created a sensation when it was first published and became an instant success in Europe and the United States.

A South African soldier collected hundreds of postcards in German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) during World War I but they lay in a shoe box in the bottom of a cupboard for two generations until they were presented to Andreas Vogt. The 670 postcards all hail from the period just before the outbreak of World War I and offer a unique and fascinating view of this era.

Since most colonial territories in Africa acquired independence, bureaucratic states have interacted with techniques of governance in which oracles, rituals and other aspects of religion played a prominent role. This workshop on 4 December, organized by the ASC Collaborative Research Group 'Rethinking contemporary African history and historiography', groups a number of researchers from the ASC joined by scholars from other institutions.

NGOs and state actors increasingly involve religious leaders in interventions that try to eradicate ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ (FGM). According to reports, the inclusion of religious leaders has led to the abandonment of the practice in a number of areas. Based on her research in Ethiopia, Marit Tolo Østebø of the University of Florida and University of Bergen will talk about the role of these religious leaders on 28 November, followed by a roundtable discussion.

Discriminatory and excluding practices hinder the development of African youth in Europe. How can we move towards a society characterized by participation? How do we empower African youth and other excluded groups to participate and raise their voices? On 20 November, universal Children’s Day, you are welcome to join the debate on how Europe can support African youth and promote their inclusion in society. Location: the Child Rights Home in Leiden.

Asian Tigers, African Lions is an anthology of contributions by scholars and diplomats about the ‘Tracking Development’ research project. This project, coordinated by the African Studies Centre and KITLV in Leiden, compared the performance of growth and development of countries in Southeast Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa during the last sixty years. How could two regions with comparable levels of income per capita in the 1950s diverge so rapidly? Why are there so many Asian tigers and not yet so many African lions?