Publications
New publications
Table of contents
This booklet is intended for children aged eight and up. Booklet and pencil in hand, the child follows a tour of the Museum’s rooms in 11 stages. Guided by a map and drawings, the child searches for animals and objects. He observes his surroundings, looking attentively for information to complete drawings or answer questions. He uses his creativity to complete his booklet. Before or after visiting the Museum, the child can take up his booklet to read short texts on Africa and learn where Museum objects come from. One chapter offers the chance to learn about the work of eight researchers of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. The many photographs that illustrate the booklet provide the child with an overall image of present-day Central Africa.
In association with ‘Congo belge en images’ (‘The Belgian Congo in Photographs’) at Antwerp’s FotoMuseum (22 January 2010 - 16 May 2010), Lannoo Publishing has issued a magnificent catalogue that captures this unique exhibition of 100 photographs from the period 1890-1920, selected by curators Carl De Keyzer and Johan Lagae from the archives of the Royal Museum for Central Africa.
* In both academic and non-academic circles, there is a growing awareness of our responsibility to document and describe languages as vehicles of intangible cultural heritage, especially endangered languages. It has become widely recognised that at least half of the world’s languages are threatened to disappear. This is also the case in Africa, which is by far the linguistically most diverse continent of the world. This new series intends to publish scientifically high quality books that contribute to both the description and documentation of hitherto poorly or non-described African languages. It will be complementary to Africana Linguistica, the RMCA’s journal of African linguistics, in that it aims at scientific contributions which do not fit the format of a research article. It welcomes not only lexical and grammatical descriptions of variable length (lexicons, dictionaries, full-fledged grammars, grammatical sketches), but also annotated text materials in African languages whose interest is larger than language description. For more info regarding the contents of the new series sen an e-mail to: lingui@africamuseum.be About the author
La République démocratique du Congo est un vaste laboratoire où se rencontrent de nombreux partenaires internationaux. Motivés par l’ambition de réhabiliter ce vaste État en faillite, tous visent le rétablissement de la sécurité, la réduction de la pauvreté, l’amélioration de la gouvernance et de la gestion macroéconomique, la réhabilitation des infrastructures. Toutefois, malgré l’importance des financements octroyés par la communauté internationale, la compétence des experts et le désir de changement affiché par les dirigeants politiques congolais, rares sont les signes tangibles de succès en matière de reconstruction. La volonté d’orchestrer les réformes du Congo est freinée par plusieurs obstacles. Historiquement, la crise est implantée. Elle est complexe sur le plan social et le monde politique y est totalement enlisé. S’il est difficile de savoir par où commencer en matière de planification, il est financièrement impossible de répondre simultanément à l’ensemble des besoins. Le message principal de cet ouvrage est peu optimiste. Il fait le constat suivant : « nous avons identifié les problèmes, nous en connaissons les causes et les solutions… mais les choses vont de mal en pis ». Les contributeurs montrent que la responsabilité de cet échec est partagée par la communauté internationale, faute d’accord sur un schéma directeur, et par les autorités congolaises, qui s’accommodent le plus souvent d’une situation de statu quo. Sans être prescriptif, ce livre analyse d’une manière critique les efforts menés pour la réhabilitation de l’État depuis l’ascension au pouvoir de Joseph Kabila. Il poursuit la réflexion entamée dans deux autres ouvrages de Theodore Trefon déjà parus dans la collection « Cahiers africains » : Ordre et désordre à Kinshasa (2004) et Parcours administratifs dans un État en faillite (2007).
Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the first half of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 validated the administration of Joseph Kabila. Several of his main followers and advisors earned posts as deputies or senators, thereby obtaining popular legitimacy. At the same time, however, the elections brought several new players to power in assemblies, national and especially provincial executive administrations, and state enterprises. The profile of the senators contrasts with that of the national and provincial deputies. They are, on average, older, and fewer are newcomers. The Senate is actually gaining several political actors from past eras, including those of Mobutu, the ‘democratic transition’, the AFDL, etc. This is due in part to the nature of the indirect ballot (election of Senate members by provincial assemblies), but also to a situation rendered still more complex by the reorganization of the country into 26 provinces. Each constituency was attributed a quota of four senators per new province (Kinshasa, with eight, is an exception). Several pioneers of independence and/or of the First Republic (1960-65), having taken part in various phases of the ‘transition’, were pushed aside (J. Bomboko, C. Rwakabuba, J. Mukamba, A. Kalonji, A. Kithima, C. Kamitatu, etc.). And it was Antoine Gizenga, whom the aforementioned pioneers excluded from power after the First Republic’s initial government (in which he was Lumumba’s vice prime minister), who reappeared, like a meteor, to fill the prestigious post of prime minister of the government marking the country’s entrance into the Third Republic. The book offers a panorama of the Congolese political class. Individual careers that reveal biographical details clarify past political history and provide analytical tools for current developments in the country and the perspectives they create.
The organological collection at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren currently comprises more than 8,000 musical instruments, three-quarters of which are from Central Africa, the Congo in particular. These harps, drums and slit drums, lamellophones, bells, flutes, whistles and other wind instruments were collected as from the late 19th century, which means that some items are now more than a hundred years old. So these instruments are also examples of the rich, centuries-old culture of the African continent. In this publication we open the doors to the reserves and showcases at the RMCA so that, although you cannot hear them being played, you can nevertheless wonder at the beauty and variety of these superbly crafted instruments.
A comparative analysis based on original diagnoses, holotypes and materials from historical collections is performed to supply detailed descriptions on 58 African species of the suborder Spongillina (order Haplosclerida) belonging to the families Spongillidae (9 genera), Malawispongiidae (2 genera), Metaniidae (1 genus) Potamolepidae (4 genera) and 1 incertae sedis genus. In view of the rapid decline of the biodiversity of Africa’s freshwater fauna as a result of climate change and other man-made influences, this publication will remain a milestone for the knowledge on the distribution of these animals. As filter feeders, they are extremely subject to even low levels of pollution and may therefore constitute an ideal gauge for the evaluation of the quality of surface waters. The authors, Renata Manconi and Roberto Pronzato work in Italy, but this book is for a large proportion based on the study and collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, in Tervuren, Belgium.
Featuring 180 outstanding masks, many of them photographed and published here for the first time, and works by contemporary African artists, this engaging book offers a new interpretation of the mask as a universal object that both hides and reveals. By examining the use of masks in dances, rituals and the belief system they serve and represent, the book explores both their physical and symbolic roles as objects that are ’devitalized’ when taken out of their context but that nevertheless prompt questions about identity, self-esteem and conceptions of “the Other” in Western society.
Table of contents SEYFULINA, R.R. & JOCQUÉ, R. 2009. Venia kakamega gen. n., sp. n., a new, canopy-dwelling, Afrotropical erigonine (Araneae, Linyphiidae). STAREGA, W. & SNEGOVAYA, N. Yu. 2009. Report on a Southern African collection of harvestmen in the Royal Museum for Central Africa: Family Assamiidae (Arachnida: Opiliones). DE MEYER M. & COPELAND R.S. 200x A new sexually dimorphic Ceratitis species from Kenya (Diptera: Tephritidae). HANSSENS, M. 2009. A review of the Clarias species (Pisces; Siluriformes) from the Lower Congo and the Pool Malebo. MAES, K.V.N. 2009. A checklist of the Pyrausta species of Africa with description of new species (Lepidoptera, Pyraloidea, Crambidae, Pyraustinae). OPITZ, W. 2009. Revision of the African beetle genus Romanaeclerus (Coleoptera: Cleridae: Korynetinae). PURCHART, L. 2009. A new Prunaspila Koch (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Adelostomini) from Zimbabwe, with species key to the genus. JOCQUÉ, R. 2009. Some keep it short: on the radiation in the Afrotropical spider genera Capheris and Systenoplacis (Araneae, Zodariidae) without male pedipalp complexity increase. VANDENSPIEGEL, D. & PIERRARD, G. 2009. Review of the genus Prionopetalum (Odontopygidae, Diplopoda) and description of new species from East Africa. DALL'ASTA, U. 2009. Description of a new species of Eudasychira Möschler, 1887 (Lymantriidae, Lepidoptera) with a taxa checklist of the genus. AZARKINA, G.N. 2009. Two new species of the genus Aelurillus Simon, 1885 (Araneae, Salticidae) from Africa.
|
