Archives: Events

On May 20, 2022 Prof. Jeroen Dewulf, Professor at the UC Berkeley Department of German & Dutch Studies and also active in the fields of African Studies and Latin American Studies, visits BantUGent for a public talk. Title and abstract below. A recording of the talk is available here.

Flying Back to Africa or Flying to Heaven? Competing Visions of Afterlife in the Lowcountry and Caribbean Slave Societies

This study presents a new interpretation of the famous folktale about enslaved Africans flying home, including the legend that only those who refrained from eating salt could fly back to Africa. It rejects claims that the tale is rooted in Igbo culture and relates to suicide as a desperate attempt to escape from slavery. Rather, an analysis of historical documents in combination with ethnographic and linguistic research makes it possible to trace the tale back to West-Central Africa. It relates objections to eating salt to the Kikongo expression curia mungua “to eat salt”, meaning baptism, and claims that the tale originated in the context of discussions among the enslaved about the consequences of a Christian baptism for one’s spiritual afterlife.

On April 1, 2022, Bruna da Silva (BantUGent) defends her PhD dissertation titled “Specialised Digital Frame-Based Lexicography from the Perspective of Dictionary Use Research”, which she wrote under the co-supervision of Prof. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (BantUGent) and Rove Luiza de Oliveira Chishman (Vale do Rio dos Sinos University, Brazil). The jury members are Dr. Tanara Zingano Kuhn (University of Coimbra, Portugal), Prof. Larissa Moreira Brangel (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Prof. Timothy Colleman (Ghent University, Belgium), and Prof. Sandro José Rigo (UNISINOS University, Brazil).

This event takes place via video-conferencing, with Teams.

This talk examines the art of the Rwandan kingdom in the Great Lakes Region of eastern Africa, investigating how environmental and political conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including encounters with European missionaries and colonial powers, shaped artistic creativity in Rwanda. Ultimately, the talk will consider the following questions: How was the image of the kingdom transformed by Rwandese artists? What can material objects reveal about Rwanda’s heritage and state formation? How and why did artwork impact Rwandan and European perceptions of the kingdom more broadly? The talk draws, in part, from images and objects held in the archives and collections of the Smithsonian Institution, including photographs and films taken by White Fathers missionaries in Rwanda. Through object-based examinations and archival research, this talk examines how Rwandese artists rendered images of power and prosperity through works depicting cattle and reflecting surrounding landscapes that shaped both Rwandan and European notions of the kingdom.

Talia Lieber is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she specializes in the arts of the African continent. Originally from Washington, D.C., Talia earned her M.A. degree in Art History from UCLA (2019) and her B.A. in International Relations and Art History from Tufts University (2013). Her dissertation research on the art of Rwanda has been generously supported by the Smithsonian Institution, the Fulbright Program, and UCLA. She has assisted with African art exhibitions at the National Museum of African Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and served as Co-Editor-In-Chief of Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies. 

Angi Ngumbu (The Seed Company) visits BantUGent on Wednesday March 23 and will give a talk titled “Applied Linguistics: Stories of how linguistics is impacting the lives of the speakers of minority languages in DRC”

Angi Ngumbu has been working as a linguist and project manager in the two Congos (Brazzaville and Kinshasa) for 15 years.  She will share about the different projects she has worked on during this time in applied linguistics, from picture dictionaries, language documentation, survey, and orthography development.  Some of this work has been directly influenced by or done in collaboration with personnel from Ghent University.

Venue: Simon Stevin Room

Contact: koen.bostoen@ugent.be

On April 1, 2022 (9.30 am CET), Heidi Goes (BantUGent) defends her PhD dissertation titled “A historical-comparative approach to phonological and morphological variation in the Kikongo Language Cluster, with a special focus on Cabinda”, which she wrote under the co-supervision of Prof. Koen Bostoen (BantUGent) and Prof. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (BantUGent). The jury members are Prof. Bruce Connell (York University), Prof. Nobuko Yoneda (Osaka University), Prof. Joseph Koni Muluwa (ISP Kikwit), Prof. Mark Janse (UGent) and Dr. Guy Kouarata (UGent).  The president of the jury is Prof. Jo Van Steenbergen (UGent) and the secretary Dr. Hilde Gunnink (UGent).

This event can also be followed online through MS Teams. More info: heidi.goes@ugent.be

The ceremony will be followed by a reception (near the Faculty Council, Blandijnberg 2, first floor)

Please confirm your presence using this link (https://webappsx.ugent.be/eventManager/events/cabinda), at the latest  Wednesday at noon (23/3/2022).

2 Workshops with choreographer Harold George in de Vooruit. Contact Amber.Frateur@UGent.befor information

A dance rehearsal/debate: with Harold George, Dunia Dance Theatre & AfriKeraArts

Registration:https://webappsx.ugent.be/eventManager/events/DANCEREHEARSAL