News and events

Newsletters

Download a pdf of the latest newsletter (April 12).

Previous newsletters are available for download here in pdf format:

2012: Jan Apr
2011: Jan Apr, Jul , Oct
2010: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2009: Jan, Apr, Jul Oct
2008: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2007: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2006: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2005: Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
2004: Oct

Other ASAUK news

ASAUK Teaching Fellowship, 2011-12

The ASAUK Council, in association with the British Academy, is offering a teaching fellowship of up to £9,000 to a UK based academic for work in an African University during 2011-12. Ideally we are looking for applications from early career 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 designed to cover travel expenses and about six month’s subsistence. The award can cover any field in the social sciences and humanities. Applicants should negotiate links and teaching responsibilities themselves. Read a Report on an ASAUK Teaching Fellowship held at the Institut des droits de l’homme et de la paix, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal by Marie Gibert in the latest ASAUK newsletter.

Applicants should send:

by Friday the 30th of September 2011 to David Kerr: d.kerr(AT)bham.ac.uk

ASAUK Writing Workshop in South Africa

ASAUK held a writing workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, on 17th February in association with the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Five journals participated, Africa (represented by Insa Nolte) and JSAS (William Beinart) from the UK and the South African Historical Journal (Mucha Musemwa), South African Review of Sociology (Marcelle Dawson and Shireen Ally) and African Studies (Liz Gunner) based in South Africa.

We have received excellent feedback both from editors and participants.ASAUK has now sponsored six workshops and has plans for more. Specific journals such as JSAS and Africa are taking them forward in other contexts and the Africa Institute in South Africa is developing a similar programme for postgraduate students. Read more about the workshop in the ASAUK newsletter (PDF).

ASAUK Directory of British Africanists

A new edition of the ASAUK Directory of British Africanists is being produced. While the previous three editions of 1986, 1990 and 1996 have all been paper editions, the new directory will be online, regularly updated and constantly renewed with additional names.

You may have received an email asking you to add your details to the directory, if you have not yet entered your details in the directory please go to the website: www.africadesk.ac.uk

All records on the directory will be edited by Anne Merriman prior to becoming viewable live on the website.

The directory is part of the new Africadesk website jointly managed by the ASAUK and the British Academy. In addition to the Directory of British Africanists, it will host a new directory of African scholars who have, through scholarships, fellowships or collaborative research projects, established and wish to maintain links with UK social sciences and humanities scholars. In due course, there will also be a SCOLMA-managed directory of UK and European library collections as well as information on UK-based African studies centres, and African studies journals published in the UK on the website.

ASAUK is committed to enhancing academic links between the UK and Africa and we hope that the Africa Desk will help scholars in the UK and Africa identify partners for future research projects and build strong, enduring relationships. The Africa Desk will also be a central point of information on the UK Africanist community featuring information on scholarships, fellowships and research opportunities, as well as information on other initiatives to support research and collaboration.

If you are aware of British Africanists not currently in the directory, in order that they may be invited to join, then please pass their name to: contact(AT)africadesk.ac.uk

ASAUK is deeply indebted to Professor Richard Hodder-Williams (President ASAUK 1996-1998 and Honorary Treasurer 1998-2008) for the work that he has put into setting up the directory of British Africanists. Without his commitment and perseverance the current directory would not have been produced.

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

The French Institute for Research in Africa in Nigeria

IFRA Nigeria announces the reopening of its website: www.ifra-nigeria.org It will enhance IFRA's capacity to make its work more widely available both within Nigeria and internationally. The website contains information about IFRA's calls for papers, fieldwork grants, research programmes and publications. There is also online access to transcripts of events organised by the institute, past issues of the IFRA Newsletter and to a database of the Nigerian press in Hausa.

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.

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.

For more info see the Society’s website.

Leventis Nigerian Post-Doctoral Fellowship at SOAS, 2011-12

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 the scholars with accommodation. The two Leventis Scholars in 2010 were: Ozioma Onuzulike, Department of Fine Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka: ‘Creative individualist and innovation in Ceramic Art: A Study of the Works of Benjo Igwilo and Chris Echeta’, and Oladoku Taiwo Olaniyi, Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization: ‘Mainstreaming Ifa Worship Through Television in South-Western Nigeria: A Search for Understanding?’

Applications for 2011 are now closed.

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

Archive

The Mary Kingsley Zochonis Lecture 2006 (pdf download)

ASAUK Presidential Address, Sept 06 (pdf download)