Leeds African Studies Bulletin No. 80 (2018/19)
Welcome to the 2018/19 issue of the Leeds African Studies Bulletin. This is the 80th issue of the Bulletin, which makes a very special issue indeed.
It is the first issue that I had the pleasure of editing, together with my colleague Dr Akin Iwilade. Let me make use of this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge my predecessor as Director of LUCAS and editor of the Bulletin, Dr Shane Doyle. Under Shane’s calm but focused leadership, LUCAS has expanded the range of its activities and has been able to achieve a long-term strategic objective: the realisation of the Lectureship in African Studies. Shane’s recent promotion to Professor of African History at Leeds is very well-deserved, and we warmheartedly congratulate him on this milestone!
One way of contributing to this thriving field is the publication of the present Bulletin, which includes four academic articles and five book reviews. Together, these publications represent the wide range of themes and approaches critical to cutting-edge Africanist scholarship. Nic Cheeseman wrote an article, together with Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis, about the topic of the LUCAS Annual lecture that he gave on 16 March 2017, about elections and political change in Africa, focusing on the case of Kenya. In the article, the authors look back at the 2017 Kenyan elections, offering an insightful commentary on the electoral process. Jorja Lawrence Levy graduated from the School of English in the 2017-18 academic year, with a dissertation for which she was awarded the Lionel Cliffe Leeds dissertation prize in African studies. She has revised this dissertation into the article “Living with ‘Doubled’ ‘Rememories’: Tracing Black Matrilineal Trauma from White Supremacist and Black Patriarchal Origins”. Two further articles were solicited through an open call for papers and a careful review process: “Singing Resistance and Compliance: Contesting Identity and Power in Western African Popular Music”, by Diekara Oloruntoba-Oju, and “‘Unholy Trinity’ and ‘Transformations’ in Post-1994 South Africa: Re-focusing ‘Transformation’ in Higher Education For Social and Economic Empowerment”, by Oladele Ayorinde. We warmly recommend these worth-reading articles to your attention. The articles are complemented by five book reviews, reflecting the breadth and vitality of African studies.
We trust that you will enjoy our annual Bulletin, and we encourage you to submit articles and book reviews for future volumes!
Adriaan van Klinken
Studying Africa
- ‘Unholy Trinity’ and ‘Transformation’ in Post-1994 South Africa: Refocusing ‘Transformation’ in Higher Education for Social and Economic Empowerment
- Living with ‘Doubled’ ‘Rememories’: Tracing Black Matrilineal Trauma from White Supremacist and Black Patriarchal Origins
- Singing Resistance and Compliance: Contesting Identity and Power in Western African Popular Music