News and events
Newsletters
Download a pdf of the latest newsletter (Oct 09) from the ASAUK by clicking here
Previous newsletters are available for download here in pdf
format:
2009: Jan, Apr, Jul
2008: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2007: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2006: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2005: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2004: Oct
Other news
ASAUK Teaching Fellowship
The ASAUK Council, in association with the British Academy, is offering two teaching fellowships of up to £9,000 each to UK based academics for work in an African University during 2010. ASAUK Council is committed to developing partnerships and academic relations between British and African Universities. Ideally we are looking for applications from young academics that have recently finished doctoral degrees on African topics in British Universities. But we will also consider doctoral students, especially those with some teaching experience, and other applicants based in British universities. The award is open to applicants of any nationality trained in British universities.
The award is designed to cover travel expenses and about six month’s subsistence at £1,300 a month. However, ASAUK Council has a flexible approach to the award and would be keen to support co-funding or exchange arrangements that could last over a longer period. The award can cover any field in the social sciences and humanities. Applicants should negotiate links and teaching responsibilities themselves. Applicants should send a CV, including teaching experience, research focus, and research plans; a short description of teaching plans and any co-funding or partnership arrangement; a letter of support from a sponsor in an African institution; and a letter of support from a mentor, supervisor or other referee in the UK by 28 August 2009 to David Kerr: d.kerr(AT)bham.ac.uk
African Affairs' African Author Prize
The editors of African Affairs are pleased to announce the establishment of the African Author Prize. The prize will be awarded for the best article published in African Affairs by an author based in an African institution, or an African Ph.D student based in an overseas university. The prize is in recognition of excellent African scholarship, which often does not reach audiences outside the African continent. To the extent possible, the prize committee will prioritize scholars at the beginning of their career.
The prize will be awarded every second year, for the best article published in the previous two year period. Thus, the first prize will be awarded for articles published in the calendar years 2008 and 2009, and will be announced at the ASAUK Conference in Oxford in September 2010. The awarding committee includes Richard Dowden (Director of RAS), William Beinart (President of ASAUK), Rufus Akinyele (Member of the Editorial Board), and the editors of African Affairs. The winner will receive a cash prize of £500, one year’s free subscription to African Affairs, an economy airfare to London, and £500 for expenses to attend the ASAUK Conference. The runner-up will receive one year's free subscription to the journal.
ASAUK Journal Writing Workshop
Saturday 31st October 2009, 10.30am - 6.30pm, University of Cambridge
In association with the International African Institute, the British Academy Africa panel, and the journals African Affairs, Itupale Online Journal of African Studies, Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Southern African Studies and the Review of African Political Economy, the ASAUK is planning a writing workshop to assist young scholars to prepare material for publication in international journals.
ASAUK will support travel within the UK for up to 15 participants. Applicants should contact David Kerr d.kerr(AT)bham.ac.uk with an abstract, and an indication of travel expenses, by 7th August 2009. Those papers or chapters selected for the workshop should be ready for circulation by the 14th of September Participants should try to get them into a form suitable for submission to a journal (about 8,000 words and with footnotes).
The ASAUK Council, working through its Research Committee, is committed to enhancing academic links between British and African institutions, and to increasing representation in British journals of work by scholars based in Africa. It is also committed to creating opportunities for young scholars of all backgrounds to publish their material. The workshop will be designed to achieve these goals. We are particularly interested in applications from those doing doctoral degrees and those who have recently completed.
In the initial session, representatives from the Journals will discuss their priorities and the publication process in general. In three further sessions, students or post-docs will have the opportunity to present papers to a journal editor and small audience, and to work through comments and possible improvements. Papers will be pre-circulated. There will be follow-up workshops involving other journals.
New focus on Africa as LSE creates first chair in African development
An idea first planted by Nelson Mandela has borne fruit with the appointment of a leading African scholar to a new Chair in African Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Thandika Mkandawire, currently Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, took up the post in September 2009. Of Malawian origin, he is an economist with particular expertise on development issues. He was formerly Director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen and has taught at the Universities of Stockholm and Zimbabwe.
The Chair in African Development is a new position which will be situated in LSE's Development Studies Institute (DESTIN). It is being funded initially not only by DESTIN but by generous contributors to LSE's Annual Fund, many of them alumni. Its creation follows a powerful speech made by Nelson Mandela at LSE in 2000, in which he recognised the connections between LSE and Africa and pointed to the potential for education to help deliver a renaissance on the continent. The new post will play an integral role in LSE's African Initiative, a programme designed not only to reinvigorate African research at LSE but to put Africa at the centre of the social sciences and in the global public spotlight.
University of Cambridge to Launch M.Phil in African Studies
The Centre of African Studies will launch a new nine-month M.Phil course in African Studies in October 2010. The aim is to offer students a window into the cultural, intellectual, and political dynamism of African societies. At a time when Africa is often represented a place in need of outsiders' benevolence and direction, it is hoped to give students the linguistic and interpretive tools to study African societies on their own terms. The degree will provide an excellent foundation for those who wish to expand their knowledge of Africa, and particularly for students entering positions in the arts, the media, NGOs, and other professions.
Applications for admission in academic year 2010 will be due on 15 October 2009 for overseas students and by 31 January 2010 for home students. For more information, consult the Centre's website: www.african.cam.ac.uk Specific questions can be directed to the Centre: afrenq(AT)hermes.cam.ac.uk
The Martin Lynn Scholarship
Thanks to the generosity of the family of the late Martin Lynn, the Royal Historical Society administers an annual award in his memory. Martin Lynn was Professor of African History in the Queen’s University, Belfast, and the first scholar to hold a chair in African history in Ireland. His scholarly career was devoted to the history of West Africa and he published most extensively and importantly on the 19th and 20th century history of Nigeria. His scholarly achievements were matched by the reputation he enjoyed as an exciting and concerned teacher and a delightful, generous colleague and friend.
This award reflects the interests of the man it commemorates. Annually the Society will make an award of up to £1,000 to assist an historian pursuing postgraduate research on a topic in African history. Eligible students will be registered with a British university history department and will have successfully completed their first year of full time or first two years of part-time study by the time the award is taken up. Hannah Whittaker, a postgraduate student at SOAS, won the award in 2008. Applicants intending to use the award to carry out research within Africa will be especially welcomed. Applications by 31 May 2009 via the form on the Society’s website.
Leventis Nigerian Post-Doctoral Fellowship in London
The Leventis Foundation supports collaborative research between the Centre of African Studies (University of London) and colleagues in Nigerian universities. Successful applicant(s) will be attached to the Centre of African Studies, based at SOAS, for a period of three months. The Centre of African Studies gratefully acknowledges its collaboration with Goodenough College, which provides our visitors with accommodation. Applications should include a CV, a 1,000 word statement of current research interests and aims to be achieved during the research period in London. This scheme might be particularly appropriate for scholars working up a Ph.D thesis into publishable form. The deadline for the next round of applications is May 2010. Further information may be obtained from the CAS website.
Africa, journal of the International African institute
Africa, journal of the International African institute and Edinburgh University Press are pleased to announce that the journal is available (print and online access) by arrangement with the ASAUK and the Royal African Society at a special discounted rate of 20 to members of both organisations. For further information and to subscribe, contact: journals(at)eup.ed.ac.uk
Africa, journal of the International African institute, is delighted to announce a new thematic strand highlighting the work of local African thinkers and writers, especially those who are not part of mainstream academic or political life and whose work is often unpublished, or published in obscure or ephemeral outlets.
We are pleased to offer online access to the full content of both Africa and Africa Bibliography at www.eupjournals.com/afr until the end of February. Articles in the first issue in the African intellectuals strand (Africa 78.3) will be available freely online until the end of 2009.
Teachers, clerks, clergy, businessmen, town councillors and a host of others have engaged for over a century in the production of knowledge about African culture, producing an array of work, from local histories and philosophy, to memoirs and poetry, in English and African languages. This fascinating seam of local intellectual production is becoming an increasing focus of attention by historians, anthropologists and literary scholars. But much of it falls quickly into obscurity or remains inaccessible to scholars outside the immediate context of production.
Africa 78.3 launches the new African intellectuals strand with articles based around life-history interviews with Ghanaian development workers and with elderly Tanzanian villagers, and extracts from the war-time memoirs of a Gold Coast clerk, J.G.Mullen. The complete text of Mullen's early 20th century memoir, extracted from the Gold Coast Leader and edited by Stephanie Newell, is available as "supplementary material" in the online version of the journal.
The practice of publishing, on-line, a range of complete texts of otherwise inaccessible local documents will continue in future issues. Texts can be recent or historic, print or manuscript, oral or written, and will always be accompanied by a scholarly essay to contextualise them.
Africa Editor, Karin Barber's editorial on the African local intellectuals strand and the editorial direction of Africa can also be viewed freely online.
Africa remains the main UK-based, international journal publishing on the whole of Africa, and in all disciplines of the humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences, while retaining its historic core orientation to ethnographically rich, historically informed knowledge of life on the ground in Africa.
Visit the Africa website to find out more, subscribe or register to receive table of contents alerts.
Future issues include: Africa Special Issue 79/1, February 2009 This special issue of Africa focuses on the study of knowledge in Africa. From the perspective of Africa as a self-confident, forward-looking centre of knowledge-production, the authors engage with knowledge in practice. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, the collection illustrates the exercise of 'expertise', and explores the criteria by which expert knowledge is judged and the social processes of its validation.
ASAUK Conference Funding
This new ASAUK funding seeks to co-support/co-fund Conferences related to one of its key research themes, support travel costs for participants based within African institutions, and support events that will result in some form of publication. Since ASAUK became part of the British Academy-Sponsored Institutes and Societies (BASIS) scheme in 2007, it has established a research committee with a primary aim of facilitating research initiatives. Key themes include: African debates about governance and democratization; African knowledge production including media, popular culture, literature; social sciences and local knowledge, especially in relation to environment and food; and conflict resolution.
ASAUK Conference funding has been awarded to 'Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Pre-colonial "Guinea of Cape Verde"', Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 11-13 June 2009.
Read more here
Language and Linguistic Studies of Southern African Languages
The British Academy UK-Africa Partnership project on ‘Language and linguistic studies of Southern African languages’ is collaborative research between SOAS, the University of Botswana, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) and the University of Namibia. The project provides a collaborative framework for research on the linguistics of Southern African languages with a particular focus on the description and theoretically informed analysis of Southern African Bantu languages. Topics include the description and analysis of grammatical agreement systems, verb phrase syntax and semantics, and complex clauses. The project also addresses the wider research context in which linguistic work on Southern African languages is conducted: questions of language and identity, language use and endangerment, as well as linguistic training, data collection and methodology. The project runs from 2007 to 2010, during which time four workshops, one in each participating institution, are planned: January 2008 (SOAS), August 2008 (University of Namibia), August 2009 (University of Botswana) and August 2010 (University of KwaZulu-Natal). For further information contact: Dr Lutz Marten, Department of African Languages and Cultures, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1H 0XG, or lm5(AT)soas.ac.uk
Arts and Humanities Research Council (ARHC) Award
Who owns heritage, and who has the right to manage it? Is cultural heritage a human right? What are the uses of memory in the construction of history, heritage and identity? These are questions of vital concern to citizens all over the world. In Africa they have particular urgency, since they connect to larger questions of livelihoods, democratization, truth telling, peace building and nationhood, which a new research project on Kenya aims to address.
The three-year collaborative interdisciplinary project, ‘Managing Heritage, Building Peace: Museums, Memory and Memorialisation in Kenya,’ is led by Dr Lotte Hughes of the Open University, who has won major funding from the AHRC. It will run in parallel with a similar project funded by the British Academy, which places special emphasis on UK-Africa partnerships. The study involves scholars in the UK, Kenya and Sweden, as well as Kenyan museologists, non-professional community heritage actors and NGOs.
National museums across Africa are struggling to cast off colonial legacies, and National Museums of Kenya is no exception. It traditionally focused on the preservation of material culture, fauna and flora, with an over-emphasis on archaeology and palaeontology which reflected the influence of the Leakey family. Now it is undergoing a major makeover, and aims to broaden its public appeal. But at community level, ordinary citizens – many of whom have never visited a state museum in their lives – have other ideas about heritage. They are setting up their own small museums and sites of memory to conserve cultural and environmental heritage, build peace between communities, and commemorate past events and the heroes they hold dear. Community-driven heritage initiatives are a relatively new phenomenon in the region, and appear to signify a renaissance of civil society activism around new forms of struggle. The multi-sited project will use select case studies to monitor and document these parallel developments at state and non-state level. For more information, contact Lotte Hughes at: l.hughes(AT)open.ac.uk
Africa Journal available free to institutions in Africa
The International African Institute at SOAS has managed to arrange for our journal Africa to be available completely free of charge henceforth to educational institutions and libraries in Africa, in electronic format. More information is available here. We've sent the notice out to the various Africa and library listserves, but if you know of colleagues who may be interested learning about it, please do spread the word - and the wealth!
New network of young researchers working in Africa formed - NYRA
Work underway on a new Directory of Africanists in Britain
Archive
The Mary Kingsley Zochonis Lecture 2006 (pdf download)
ASAUK Presidential Address, Sept 06 (pdf download)
