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What? BantUGent research seminar
When? Friday 6 March 2026
Time: 13.00
Where? Lokaal 2.25, Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
Marcos Leitão de Almeida (University of São Paulo) - Reading African Intellectual History in Atlantic Archives: The Mpongwe Vocabulary of the Santa Jago (1829)

This lecture examines a rare bilingual Portuguese–African vocabulary preserved in the case file of the Santa Jago, a Brazilian slave ship seized by the British Navy in 1829 and tried at the Court of Mixed Commission in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Marcos Leitão de Almeida argues that the “African language” recorded in this manuscript is Mpongwe, spoken on the Gabonese coast, an identification that complicates prevailing assumptions about the linguistic geography of the Bahia–West Africa slave trade.

The presence of Mpongwe on a Bahia-centered slaving route raises fundamental questions about the circulation of African knowledge in the Atlantic world. Was Mpongwe spoken by captives, sailors, or interpreters on board, or does the vocabulary reflect earlier voyages along the Gabonese coast? While definitive answers remain elusive, the document opens a window onto African intellectual history under conditions of extreme inequality.

Marcos Leitão de Almeida is a Professor of African History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is a historian of Africa specializing in the long history of slavery in Central Africa, with a focus on the Lower Congo. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and UNICAMP. He earned his PhD at Northwestern University in 2020, where his dissertation received the Harold Perkin Prize, with funding from institutions including the SSRC, ACLS, and the Society of Presidential Fellows. He has published in leading journals such as the Journal of African History, Oxford Encyclopedias, and Azania, and currently serves as a consulting editor for the Journal of African History.

Abstract BantUGent talk Tom Bossuyt consessive conditionalsWhat? BantUGent research seminar co-organized with DiaLing
When? Friday 17 April 2026
Where? Lokaal 3.30 - Camelot, Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
TIme: 14.00

Tom Bossuyt (University of Freiburg) on Conditional coding in ‘even (if)’ concessive conditionals: Bantu and beyond

Abstract

Submission Deadline: 28-Feb-2026

As part of the ERC-funded CongUbangi project, this colloquium aims at bringing together scholars from different disciplines interested in Ubangi, Bantu and Central Sudanic languages and language speaking-communities in northern Republic of Congo, southern Central African Republic and northern Democratic Republic of Congo. Spanning multiple ecozones within the Congo rainforest, this area is home to an intricate demographic configuration where Bantu (Niger-Congo) and Central Sudanic (putative Nilo-Saharan) speaking groups are interspersed with Ubangi groups. The internal relationships among groups lumped under the label “Ubangi” are unclear. While their individual Niger-Congo affiliation looks promising, this is based on very little evidence. Linguistic hallmarks of this area include multidirectional language shift, contact and linguistic enclaves.

The region’s linguistic diversity is matched with human genetic diversity. The few available studies suggest significant genetic differentiation among populations also having distinct cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds, but genetic sampling is insufficient compared to other parts of Africa, especially among Ubangi and Central Sudanic speakers. Further, nothing is known about admixture patterns which might reveal the dynamics of early contacts in the region.

Archaeological research within the region has been sparse, leaving large gaps in the history of pre-colonial populations and population movements. While a deep-seated hypothesis deprived of linguistic or archaeological evidence argues that Bantu were the first to settle in this region, the astonishing geographic fragmentation of Ubangi subgroups such as Mundu-Baka and Mbaic and of Central Sudanic subgroups such as Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi, suggests that these might descend from the earliest layers of occupation in the region. Likewise, ethnoarchaeological data has revealed a continuity between Early Iron Age communities and the Ubangi speakers that inhabit the region today, suggesting the possible antiquity of these groups in the region.

With this framework in mind, we welcome contributions from linguistics, genetics, archaeology and related fields dealing with:
- Phonological and/or morphosyntactic accounts of yet undocumented or poorly known languages of the region
- Language contact phenomena (esp. borrowings and vocabulary shared across different language families)
- Linguistic features spreading areally through contact
- Enclaved varieties (language islands)
- Language shift
- Language stratigraphy
- Reconstruction (and comparison) of proto-languages of Ubangi, Bantu and Central Sudanic subgroups
- Methods and challenges with internal classificatory attempts within Ubangi, Bantu and Central Sudanic
- Population genetics
- Metallurgy, including iron production
- Monumentality of Bouar and adjacent regions
- Pottery analysis (e.g., stylistic, formal, and petrology)
- Lithic studies of Late Stone Age (and/or earlier) materials
- Population movements, including the Bantu Expansion
- Ethnography (e.g., hunting/foraging, pottery and iron production)
- Interactions between autochthonous foragers and pottery-producing communities

Deadlines:
Abstract submission: Submit an abstract of maximum 500 words (excluding references and/or figures) in pdf format to ubancs@ugent.be by 28th February 2026

Notification of acceptance: 30th April 2026

For all questions, please contact the organizers at ubancs@ugent.be.