This is a DFAT Professional Short Course. Although applications for this course have already closed, Additional courses (soon to be advertised) will be open to participants from other African countries in 2023.

FOR INFORMATION ONLY

This forthcoming course is available to participants from the following countries  from region 2 : Algeria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda

Conveners: Dr Steve Crimp & Dr Matthew Colloff

‘Africa is highly sensitive to both existing climate variability and projected climate change. As a result, governments, industries and communities throughout Africa will be increasingly required to respond to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.’

The ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions (ICEDS) has developed this intensive 6‑week online course to provide professionals employed in government, non-government organisations (NGOs) and the private sector in Africa with a synoptic and contextual understanding of climate change adaptation and mitigation options.

Bernie Baffour and David Lucas recently visited Claire Sheridan, Senior Collections Advisor, ANU, and she has given this update on the largely forgotten ANU African Collection:

‘The ANU Collections team recently re-located the London Collection of African Artefacts (primarily containing material from Nigeria, Ghana and Benin, collected between 1901-1920 by Arthur London) from Kioloa Coastal Campus to the ANU Campus in preparation for conservation work, cataloguing and re-boxing. Our next step will be to start a research project on the Collection’s provenance and assess the significance of this material so that we can determine the future of this Collection at the ANU.’

From the webpage for Dr Rosey Billington https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/billington-r

‘I have also undertaken research on the phonetics and phonology of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan.’ ‘I maintain an interest in research on the phonetic characteristics of English varieties in Australia, and in creole languages of the Pacific and Africa.’

Her publications include Moodie, Jonathan & Billington, Rosey 2020, A grammar of Lopit: An Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan , Brill, Leiden ; Boston.

Dr Billington “welcomes proposals for Honours/Masters research’ .. ‘including “Phonetics and phonology of Nilotic languages of East Africa

Current student projects include Shubo Li, Honours Thesis (in progress), The phonetics and phonology of the Kufo language, 

More about the work of Shubo Li and Keira Mullan on the Kufo language is available at: https://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/news-and-media/latest-headlines/article/?id=pursuing-a-long-held-dream-of-language-preservation

ANU alumnus Dr Liang Chen has returned to the University of Botswana in mid-July. He spent the first semester in Gaberone teaching four courses in the Chinese Studies program there. In the second semester he plans to undertake anthropological research on in-migrants and immigrants in the Gaberone District. 

Details of Dr Liang’s ANU seminar on ‘God, Development, and Technology Transfer: Medicated Ethics between Chinese and Ethiopians’ were posted on this blog in 13/4/2021. 

His spouse Naijing Liu is completing her doctorate in linguistics at the ANU, Her research interests, which she hopes to continue in Botswana, include the documentation of endangered languages.