The Kongo Kingdom

Koen Bostoen is Professor of African Linguistics and Swahili at Ghent University. His research focuses on the study of Bantu languages and interdisciplinary approaches to the African past. He obtained an ERC Starting Grant for the KongoKing project (2012-16) and an ERC Consolidator's Grant for the BantuFirst project (2018-22). He is author of Des mots et des pots en bantou: une approche linguistique de l'histoire de la ceramique en Afrique (2005) and co-editor of Une archeologie des provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo (2018) and The Bantu Languages (2nd edition, 2018). Inge Brinkman is Professor of African Studies at Universiteit Gent, Belgium. Her research crosscuts the fields of African literature, popular culture and history with a focus on Kenya and Angola. For her Ph.D. dissertation at Leiden University, she examined literature, identity and gender in Central Kenya. During a post-doctoral project at Cologne University, she studied violence and exile through fieldwork with refugees from South-East Angola. At the Leiden African Studies Centre, she carried out historical research on communication technologies, mobility and social relations in Africa. She has published several books and contributed articles to various renowned journals of African studies.