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The European Conference on African Studies
African Alternatives: Initiative and Creativity beyond Current Constraints
The 2nd European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) will be held in Leiden from 11-14 July 2007. Organized by the African Studies Centre for the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS), a group of Africanist institutions in the European Union that aims at improving the understanding of contemporary African societies, it will bring together social scientists from Europe and Africa to discuss issues of current importance and to promote cooperation between researchers from both continents. Topics ranging from religion, Islam, HIV/AIDS, state formation, education and literature to decentralization and politics will be discussed in 85 panel sessions.
Keynote addresses will be given by Mr Moeletsi Mbeki from the South African Institute of International Affairs, and Professor Peter Geschiere, who will give the Lugard Lecture entitled ‘Lord Lugard in the Present: From Indirect Rule to Present-Day Struggles over Belonging and Exclusion’.
The International Criminal Court will be the focus of a roundtable discussion between Fatou Bensouda (Deputy Prosecutor at the ICC), Nick Grono (International Crisis Group), Evelyn Ankumah (Africa Legal Aid) and Stephen Ellis (African Studies Centre) and editor of African Affairs..
The meet-the-author sessions will include a debate about the much-discussed book Reasonable Radicals by Professor Richard Werbner of Manchester University. Invited researchers will give their opinion of the book and discuss how it has contributed to a new perspective on political elites in Africa.
Esther Schroeder and Elmer Kolfin will give a presentation entitled ‘Africans in Dutch and Flemish Art; from Supporting Role to Leading Part’.
For more information about the conference: http://ecas2007.aegis-eu.org/