News & Events

The African Studies Centre Leiden is delighted to announce the ASCL Seminar Series speakers for 2021. The ASCL Seminars are invited (online) lectures given by some of the most prominent researchers in the field of African Studies. Dr Jennifer Chansa, University of the Free State, will kick off the series with a lecture on regulating copper mining and the history of environmental management in Zambia.

In her latest book This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize), Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her first novel Nervous Conditions (1988) and its sequel The Book of Not (2006). Her debut novel was the first to be written in English by a black woman from Zimbabwe. Her debut novel dealt with the girl called Tambu who grew up in a Shona family in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the 1960s. In the third part of the trilogy, Tambu is middle-aged. Read the Library Highlight!

Like the ASCL, Clingendael Spectator also reflected on 60 years of independence in Africa. A special dossier contains seven articles (a.o. articles written by ASCL researchers Jan Abbink, Ton Dietz and Lidewyde Berckmoes) and a synthesis by Kiza Magendane, as well as an overview of the activities and knowledge products of the ASCL in 2020. The articles are in Dutch.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Africa has, as in other parts of the world, an enormous impact on all aspects of life. A vast body of literature is developing on the COVID-19 outbreak in Africa and its social, economical, and political consequences. This ‘growing’ web dossier keeps track of new scientific publications on this subject. Also links to relevant web resources will be included. In the coming year, it will be regularly updated. Read the web dossier.

Jan Abbink has written blogs and has been interviewed by newspapers, websites and radio stations in several countries, such as Deutsche Welle, Knack, Trouw and NOS. The interviews deal with the (aftermath of the) conflict between the Tigray region armed forces and the Ethiopian federal army, provoked by an assault of the Tigray army on two federal military bases (near Dansha town and near Meqele in Tigray) in the early hours of 4 November 2020. His ASCL blog 'Hopes dashed: sabotage and mayhem in Ethiopia' is very enlightening too.