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Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies

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Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies

The Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies is a Research College within the Institute of Afric

The most important goal of the Academy is to intensify academic exchange between Africa-related and other fields of research, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The "Bayreuth Academy" is situated at Hugo-Rüdel-Straße 10, right on the foots of Bayreuth's famous „Grüner Hügel (Green Hill)“. The Bayreuth Academy is to demonstrate that African studies offer precious impulses for scholar

ly debates within and beyond the so-called area studies. In doing so, the Bayreuth Academy emphasizes that Area Studies work systematically, just as much as the so-called systematic disciplines find their empirical evidence regionally. Moreover, the Bayreuth Academy discusses Africa in its given global contexts. Entanglements with Diasporas matter just as much as those with other regions and world histories. The Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies operates at an international scale. Its work focuses on one overriding project theme for several years. Research on this theme is based on [sonst zuviel “anchored”] a number of specific group projects and is carried out predominantly by young post-doctoral researchers. In order to intensify the interdisciplinary dialogue on the overriding theme across regional divides, the different Sub-Projects meet on a regular basis in Working Groups that run for one semester each, discussing selected aspects of the overriding theme. To widen the debates, a number of short-term Guest Fellows are associated to the Bayreuth Academy through its visiting scholars’ programme. Another essential aim of the Academy is to present results from its researches and debates to the wider public. Workshops, panel discussions, readings, film screenings, and exhibitions will serve as forums for dialogues with experts actively involved in politics and economics as well as, cultural production and exchange. It starts off from the assumption that perceptions and representations of “Future” in Africa and its Diasporas are highly innovative and dynamic, that they hence invite for stimulating comparisons , and that they have an increasingly global relevance. . It demonstrates that research focusing on the “Global South” contributes significantly to wider, systematic debates on “Future”.

01/09/2026

In Memory of Prof. Dr Ulrich Berner (1948–2026)

We mourn the loss of our colleague, BIGSAS Senior Fellow and IAS member, Prof. Dr Ulrich Berner (1948–2026).
From 1986 to 2013, Ulrich Berner held the Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Bayreuth, thereby establishing the subject at the University. He was closely associated with the University’s African Studies and, through his work at BIGSAS and the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, influenced and inspired numerous young scholars who today represent the field of Religious Studies, with a focus on Africa, both nationally and internationally.

We will greatly miss his wisdom and expertise, as well as his calm and ever-inquisitive nature. Our deepest sympathies go, in particular, to his family.
The funeral service will take place on 3 September at 1 pm at the Gottesackerkirche at Bayreuth City Cemetery.

Zum Gedenken an Prof. Dr. Ulrich Berner (1948–2026)
Wir trauern um unseren Kollegen, BIGSAS Senior Fellow und IAS member, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Berner (1948-2026).

Ulrich Berner hatte von 1986 bis 2013 den Lehrstuhl für Religionswissenschaft inne und begründete damit das Fach an der Universität Bayreuth. Er war dem Afrikaschwerpunkt der Universität eng verbunden und hat durch seine Arbeit in BIGSAS und der Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies zahlreiche junge Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen geprägt, die heute national und international das Fach Religionswissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt Afrika vertreten. Wir werden seine Klugheit und Expertise und seine ruhige und immer interessierte Art sehr vermissen.

Unsere Anteilnahme gilt insbesondere seiner Familie.
Die Trauerfeier findet am 3. September um 13:00 Uhr in der Gottesackerkirche auf dem Stadtfriedhof Bayreuth statt.

31/08/2026

Hot off the Press | NAB No. XXIV | 2025

The latest edition of NAB: News from the Institute of African Studies at Uni Bayreuth is out now, looking back on a landmark year for African Studies in Bayreuth.

NAB is the annual publication of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), highlighting research activities and memorable events convened by our diverse members, alongside insights into the ongoing work of the IAS and its entities: Iwalewahaus, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, its partners in Africa, and beyond. Each edition presents research reports from current Cluster projects, fellows, junior researchers, and early career scholars.

This issue covers the successful renewal of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence and the launch of Africa Multiple 2.0, the official opening of the new Research Centre for Africa (Forschungszentrum Afrika), activities from the African Cluster Centres in Lagos, Eldoret, Ouagadougou, and Makhanda, new professorships and leadership changes at the IAS and Iwalewahaus , as well as news from African Legal Studies, afriZert, the Junior Research Groups, and Iwalewahaus' Art Passport and Thinking from the Future formats.

Read the digital version:https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/pool/dokumente/NAB/NAB-2025.pdf

26/08/2026

Fabrica de Ideas/ Factory of Ideas Doctoral School 2026
"Worldmaking at the Digital Threshold: Media, Memory, and Cultural Futures in Times of (De)globalization"

The Africa Multiple Research Centre (Kenya) hosts the event in collaboration with the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), Brazil and the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

The Factory of Ideas 2026 is an international doctoral school that will bring together up to forty PhD candidates from Africa, Latin America, and Europe to critically engage with contemporary transformations in media, technologies, and cultural production. Hosted by the Moi University African Multiple Research Centre, the school is grounded in South–South and South–North intellectual exchange, with particular attention to the historical and contemporary entanglements between Africa, Brazil, and Germany.

Theme
Across the globe, digital media and technologies are reshaping how societies imagine themselves, remember their pasts, and project cultural futures. These transformations unfold unevenly, generating both continuities and ruptures, and producing new tensions between globalization and deglobalization, inclusion and exclusion, creativity and control. The Factory of Ideas Doctoral School 2026 invites participants to critically interrogate these dynamics through interdisciplinary, comparative, and practice-based perspectives.

19/08/2026

New Publication | Writing the Slave Trade Trauma in Francophone Africa: A Study of Selected Novels

This book examines the narrative and aesthetic strategies through which three contemporary Francophone African novelists: Togolese Kangni Alem (Esclaves, 2009), Cameroonian Léonora Miano (La Saison de l’ombre, 2013), and Congolese Wilfried N’Sondé (Un Océan, deux mers, trois continents, 2018) engage the traumatic legacies of the transatlantic slave trade from the African shore, departing from the diasporic perspectives that have dominated the field. It argues that these works reconstruct the slave trade through what it theorises as traumatomimesis and historiopoesis, aesthetic practices in which narrative fragmentation, polyphonic mourning, and imaginative engagement with archival silences enact the work of a collective trauma that conventional historiography cannot contain. Organising its analysis around the moralities of capture, the spatiality of the trade, and the corporeality of violence, the study shows how Miano’s grieving Mulongo women, Alem’s rehabilitated abolitionist king, and N’Sondé’s silenced Kongolese priest each embody a distinct dimension of what the slave trade destroyed, and how their shared refusal of narrative resolution constitutes a sustained act of mourning and a foundation for African renaissance.

Thierry Boudjekeu Kamgang is a researcher in African literary and cultural studies at the University of Bayreuth. His work examines memory, historical trauma and the cultural afterlives of slavery in African and Afro-diasporic literatures, with particular attention to how contemporary writers engage collective mourning and historical repair.

Dissertation completed at BIGSAS, University of Bayreuth, within the DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence 'Africa Multiple' (EXC 2052/1 – 390713894).

Link to Publication: https://www.avm-verlag.de/detailview?no=E96091668

17/08/2026

Call for Applications | Bayreuth Academy International Fellowships 2027-2028

The Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence invites scholars in African Studies to apply for individual fellowships at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies for the academic year 2027-2028. Africa-based scholars are particularly encouraged to apply.

Application deadline: 5 October 2026

Full details in the attached document.

14/08/2026

New Publication | A Comparison of Observed and Perceived Seasonal Climate Regimes in a Rural Socio-Ecological System in Northeastern South Africa

This study investigates perceptions of climate change among residents of 12 villages in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, South Africa, comparing local knowledge with meteorological data from 1981–2023. While community perceptions aligned with recorded trends of rising temperatures and more erratic rainfall, discrepancies emerged around total rainfall amounts, highlighting the value of integrating local knowledge into climate change research and the design of culturally relevant adaptation strategies.

By F. Rusere, N. R. Houngue, S. Mkuhlani, G. Soropa, L. Hunter, W. Twine and C. Samimi. Published in Regional Environmental Change (2026).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-026-02591-1

11/08/2026

BIGSAS at the University of Bayreuth is looking for a BIGSAS Management Assistant (m/f/d)

Application deadline: 30 August 2026

Full details in the attached document.

10/08/2026

A couple of months ago, at the General Assembly of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, two appointments were made that further strengthen the Cluster's commitment to supporting early career researchers and doctoral education in African Studies.

Prof. Dr. Thokozani Kaime was elected as the Cluster's Vice Dean of Early Career and Equal Opportunity and simultaneously as Head of Bigsas Bayreuth . Professor Kaime holds the Chair of African Legal Studies at the University of Bayreuth and is a Principal Investigator in the Africa Multiple Cluster, with research focusing on African legal studies, human rights, sustainable development and the governance of natural resources.

Prof. Dr. Serawit Bekele Debele was appointed as Deputy Head of BIGSAS. A former BIGSAS graduate herself, Professor Debele holds the Professorship for Gender, Sexuality and Religion with a Focus on Africa at the University of Bayreuth. Her research examines the intersections of religion, gender, sexuality, politics and society in African contexts.

Read more: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/news/2026/2026-06-25_KaimeVice-Dean/index.html

05/08/2026

Introducing AMIRA | Africa Multiple Interactive Research Atlas

The Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence has launched AMIRA, a new platform for exploring and visualising the Cluster's research data. Bringing together almost 4,000 research items, more than 90 projects, over 1,600 people and 600 organisations across 42 countries and 28 languages, AMIRA offers a single point of access to the Africa Multiple research network through interactive maps, timelines, network graphs and more.

AMIRA is a joint effort with our Africa Multiple Research Centre partners at the University Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Rhodes University, the University of Lagos, and Moi University. Each centre describes the data it knows best, while the shared infrastructure connects them keeping data in its local repository while making it findable across the network.

The platform is open to all, no account required.

Explore AMIRA here: https://data.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/s/amira/page/home

28/07/2026

Last call | AFRICA: translating

The submission deadline for our Call for Artistic Contributions is 31 July 2026. Only a few days left!

We are looking for photographs and images of artworks that engage with the richness and complexity of translation in African contexts and beyond. Selected works will be featured in the Africa Multiple 2027 postcard calendar and contributors will receive an honorarium of €250.

Max. 3 images per person | Landscape format only | JPEG, min. 300 dpi

Full details and submission form: https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de/en/news/2026/2026-06-20_Aufruf_Translating/index.html

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