Important Dates

Abstract

This panel aims to bring together old and new perspectives on the history of African historiography, i.e. on the history of how Africans and others, from within and outside of African societies, have dealt with and thought about the African past. The panel invites papers on a wide range of topics, including, the legacy of the slave trade and how it has been studied, pan-African visions of history, how the ‘Mfecane’ became conceptualized as a period in Southern-African history and how the power of the paradigmatic logic of the Hamitic hypothesis was employed to introduce a racialist logic in African history. Historical analysis of the key methodological debates, for instance, the use of oral history and oral traditions as source materials, is of interest, too – especially in relation to debates on the decolonization of history. Lastly, the panel also wishes to engage with the actors and networks of this intellectual history and the history of decolonization of historiography that ensued. For instance: what has been the role of international institutions such as UNESCO and its General History of Africa project in establishing a historiography of Africa? [coordination: ASCL and History Department Leiden, together with Humboldt University Berlin, Edinburgh University, and Rhodes University]

Convenors

• Marieke van Winden (conference organiser) (African Studies Centre Leiden)
  
• Larissa Nordholt (Leiden University)
  
• Jan-Bart Gewald (Leiden University)
  
• Marie Huber (Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin)
  
• Adom Getachew (University of Chicago)
  
• Enocent Msindo (Rhodes University)
  

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