News & Events

The European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) will be hosted by the University of Cologne, Germany, from 31 May to 3 June. Some 35 researchers from the ASCL and Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper.

The Library has noticed that regularly clients, notably students, do not have a DVD player at their disposal anymore. Because the extensive film collection of the library - more than 2000 films - is still on DVD, the library recently purchased an external DVD drive which can be borrowed together with one or more DVDs. 

Since the early nineteenth century, the things which Black South Africans have had in their homes have changed completely. Thus they claimed modernity, respectability and political inclusion. This book by Robert Ross argues that the desire to possess such goods formed a major part of the drive behind the anti-apartheid struggle.

Klaas de Jonge died on 5 May 2023. Klaas worked as a senior researcher at the African Studies Centre from 1968-1980. He became front page news in 1985 when he was holed up in the Dutch embassy in Pretoria, as a fugitive from the South African police. Read the In Memoriam written by Ineke van Kessel.

On 24 April 2016, Congolese singer and musician Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, known professionally as Papa Wemba died at the age of 66 after collapsing on stage in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, during the FEMUA urban music festival. Dubbed the 'King of Rumba Rock', he was one of the most popular musicians of his time in Africa and played an important role in world music. 

In many Muslim contexts across West Africa, the Hausa concept of 'boko' has come to mean a Western style of education, in contrast with 'adini', or Islamic religiosity. In this co-organised LUCIS/ASCL lecture on 11 May, Abdoulaye Sounaye will discuss the relationship between boko and adini in the light of contemporary Islamic dynamics in West Africa.

AEGIS, the network of Europe-based institutions with a focus on research and education on Africa and African Studies, has launched a brand-new website. The site has been enlivened and restructured, important information updated, and a number of new features added.