e-mail: africa@iaas.msu.ru
phone: +7(095)203-34-25

Head: Prof. N.V. Gromova

The Chair of Africanistics was founded at the Institute of Asian and African Studies in 1960, with the admission of the first group of students learning Swahili language. It is the only integrated chair of the Institute - its staff includes lecturers in Linguistics, Literature and History. The chair offers courses in major African languages - Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, Lingala, Peul, Zulu, Afrikaans; previously such languages as Malagasy, Somali, Tigrai and Bamana were also taught.

The lecturers of the chair have developed programs of theoretical and practical courses of all the major African languages, as well as textbooks, readers, dictionaries and other learning materials. The linguists of the chair also carry out wide research work in various theoretical aspects of African linguistics. The linguists of the chair have prepared a number of collective studies, such as: "African Philology" (Moscow, 1965, in Russian), "The problems of African philology" (Moscow, 1974, in Russian), "The problems of phonetics, morphology and syntax of African languages" (Moscow, 1978, in Russian), "The problems of African linguistics" (Moscow, 1979, in Russian), "The problems of African linguistics, vol.II" (Moscow, 1983, in Russian), "Lexicology and word derivation in African languages", "The problems of African linguistics" (Moscow, 1988, in Russian), and others.

The specialists in African literatures give general courses in the history of African literatures, special courses on African literatures in European and indigenous languages, giving particular attention to the specific features of literary development in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Currently they are working over such projects as the monographic study on contemporary Swahili literature and the collection of interviews with East African Swahili writers.

The historians of the chair have prepared the programs for a number of general and special courses in African history, sections on African history for textbooks on Asian and African history, published at Moscow Lomonosov University within the last three decades, a number of monographic studies on the history of particular African countries, textbooks on African ethnology, students' guide "The history of Tropical and Southern Africa. 1918-1989" (Moscow, 1989, in Russian), and other learning materials.

The specialists of the chair participate actively in local and international conferences on African studies, carry out field research in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon and others).

Currently the specialists of the chair are working over the joint project "Ethno-cultural processes in Africa".