The 2026 AEGIS Summer School, which will convene in Cagliari (Sardinia) in May 2026, is aligned with the theme of the 2027 European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place in Lisbon in 2027.
The purpose of the Summer School is to prepare early-career researchers so that they will be in a strong position to volunteer panels and papers at the conference. The theme of the Summer School and ECAS 2027 is "African Prisms". It aims to speak to the multiplicity of disciplines, perspectives, methods, histories, and images that shape the contemporary study of Africa. At its essence, a prism refracts light, revealing a spectrum where once appeared unity.
The Summer School seeks contributions from early-career researchers that explore Africa's multiple dimensions: its vast intellectual traditions, cosmologies, ecological systems, demographic challenges, social movements, ideologies, political institutions, diasporic connections, creative economies, technological innovations, and everyday practices. The theme foregrounds a methodological openness, recognising that complex realities demand intersectional and cross-disciplinary approaches. The Summer School particularly welcomes papers that seek to integrate original findings from fieldwork with conceptual thinking. The Summer Schools seek to build a network amongst participants that will feed into the ECAS conference, but also outlast it.
Limited funding to participate in the summer school is available - please contact Annelies.Verdoolaege@UGent.be