2911, 2023

Documenting resistance and confronting legacies. Working with British missionary archive collections from the Caribbean region.

By Special Collections|29th November 2023|Collections & Research|0 comments

Content advice: Please note that this blog discusses sensitive subject matter relating to enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade, which may be triggering or difficult to read. In today’s blog, we consider the question of how, as archivists, researchers, and communities, we might critically engage with colonial histories in the archives to understand and acknowledge the legacies of enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade. By looking at some recent initiatives

1605, 2023

Part 2/ Locating Voices of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in 19th Century Missionary Periodicals

By Special Collections|16th May 2023|Behind the scenes, Collections & Research|0 comments

Today’s blog comes from Dr Joanne Davis, Research Associate with the Centre of World Christianity at SOAS. Following on from her last blog, Jo reflects on the completion of a successful collaborative research project, BIPOC Voices in the Victorian Periodical Press, which has recently launched on onemorevoice.org. This work introduces and documents a series of unknown or little-studied pieces from Victorian missionary periodicals by BIPOC creators. Here she presents a quick overview of the

2110, 2022

Black History Month 2022: Heinemann African Writers Series

By Special Collections|21st October 2022|Collections & Research|0 comments

In 2022, we celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the founding of the Black History Month movement in the UK. As part of the many activities and events that SOAS has brought to its students, staff and general audience during October 2022, SOAS Library is hosting a display of important, original materials from the Heinemann African Writers Series, which is held by our Special Collections department. The display has been curated by SOAS

0510, 2022

The Life and Work of Rev. William E. Taylor (1856-1927)

By Special Collections|5th October 2022|Collections & Research|0 comments

In this blog, we discuss the life and work of the late Reverend William E. Taylor of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), who collected together many Swahili manuscripts while he was stationed in Mombasa, on the Kenyan Coast, during the late 19th century/early 20th century. Rev. William E. Taylor was considered one of the greatest Swahili scholars, according to the late Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar and Peter Frankl who wrote about Taylor’s

2910, 2021

Locating Voices of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in 19th Century Missionary Periodicals

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|29th October 2021|Collections & Research|0 comments

Today’s blog comes from Dr Joanne Davis, Research Associate with the Centre of World Christianity at SOAS. Following on from her last piece, Jo reflects on a period of research in SOAS Special Collections for a new project, ‘Recovering BIPOC Voices from the Victorian Periodical Press’, which establishes a publishing partnership between SOAS Special Collections, an open access digital humanities initiative One More Voice (onemorevoice.org) which is focused on recovering non-European contributions from Victorian-era British colonial archives, and

0803, 2021

Women’s History Month 2021: NoSuthu Soga Jotelo and the One More Voice Project

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|8th March 2021|Collections & Research|5 comments

To mark International Women’s Day, today’s blog comes from Dr Joanne Davis, an African literary scholar, whose research on Reverend Tiyo ‘Zisani’ Soga has led her to archives across the world. In uncovering and examining a unique letter by Soga’s mother, NoSuthu Soga Jotelo, Joanne has made a fascinating contribution to a new and developing online resource, One More Voice. This International Women’s History Month, SOAS Special Collections presents a new

1603, 2020

Women’s History Month 2020: Semane Setlhoko Khama

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|16th March 2020|Collections & Research|0 comments

To celebrate Women’s History Month 2020, we are looking at the lives of some of the influential women documented in the archives and special collections held by SOAS. This week we focus on Semane Setlhoko Khama (1881-1937), mohumagadi (queen or queen mother) of the BaNgwato of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, now Botswana, and Christian leader and teacher. In 1900, Semane became the fourth wife of Khama III (c.1837-1923), kgosi (chief) of

1910, 2016

Black History Month 2016: Seretse Khama

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|19th October 2016|Collections & Research|0 comments

As SOAS marks Black History Month we continue to hi-light historical collections held by SOAS Archives, which reveal the long-standing Black presence in the UK, as well as the contributions and achievements of Black peoples in local, national and international arenas. This week we look at papers in the archives relating to Seretse Khama (1921-1980), the first President of Botswana, who spent some of his early life in Britain. He is also the subject of a

2406, 2015

New Collection: The Papers of Johanna Agthe (anthropologist and museum curator)

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|24th June 2015|Collections & Research|2 comments

SOAS Archives is pleased to announce that the papers of the anthropologist and museum curator Dr Johanna Agthe (1940-2005) are now available to researchers at SOAS Library, University of London. The following biographical overview of Johanna Aghte and description of her papers (Ref: MS 381135) is taken from the catalogue overview authored by Elsbeth Court (SOAS Subject Lecturer in African Art). SOAS Archives would like to acknowledge Elsbeth’s excellent work

0803, 2015

Women’s History Month 2015: Papers of Diane Noakes

By Special Collections, SOAS Library|8th March 2015|Collections & Research|0 comments

To celebrate Women’s History Month 2015, the campaign to raise the profile of women’s history and to champion women of the past, we will be highlighting a number of historical collections held by SOAS Archives which reveal the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. To mark International Women’s Day, we look today at the personal papers of Diane Noakes (1911-1983), anticolonialist and labour movement activist. Mary (Diane)

African peoples