YouTube playlists

Over the years, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence has invited many renowned scholars and artists to talk about their take on the topics close to the Cluster's agenda.

The Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence has four partner institutions that have the status of African Cluster Centres (ACC): the University of Lagos (Nigeria), Moi University (Eldoret, Kenya), Université Ouaga 1 Professeur Joseph Ki-Zerbo (Ougadougou, Burkina Faso), and Rhodes University (Makhanda/Grahamstown, South Africa). The ACCs serve as nodes for joint research initiatives and networks within the cluster and are the main partners in the cluster’s endeavor of reconfiguring African Studies. In this playlist you can find interviews with members of the different ACCs.

In cooperation with ARTE, the European culture channel, the Cluster of Excellence showed different documentary films. As part of the film series Afrikaleidoskop these events took place at the Kulturhaus Neuneinhalb. Each screening is followed by a discussion between the filmmakers and scholars of the Cluster.

Despite the pandemic the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence still wanted to invite artists. Therefore a lot of events were held virtuelly. Here you can find the vidoes of the performances in 2020.

“Crises and Responsibilities. kNOWledges in Academia, Arts and Activism” In 2019 the 9th edition of the BIGSAS Festival of African and African-diasporic literature was dedicated to “crisis” – and respective knowledges and responsibilities. Topics included environmentalism in the context of a Friday for Future demonstration and the so called “refugee crisis”. Readings, performances, concerts, a vernissage, scholarly lectures and panel discussions, workshops framed a dialogue of academia, activism and the arts from Africa, the MENA region, respective diasporas and beyond.

Cinema Africa is an annual film festival that takes place in Bayreuth Germany and is curated by Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler, the Chair of Romance & Comparative Literature at the University of Bayreuth. In November of 2019, Cinema Africa was presented at Bayreuth's Cineplex and saw screenings of "Resgate Redemption", " Duga – Les Charognards", " Fatwa" and " La miséricorde de la jungle". Each film was represented by a special guest answering questions of the audience after the movie was shown. The honorary guests also sat down with researchers of the Cluster to talk in-depth about their respective projects. This playlist contains the recording of these interviews.

Cinema Africa is an annual film festival that takes place in Bayreuth Germany and is curated by Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler, the Chair of Romance & Comparative Literature at the University of Bayreuth. In November of 2021, Cinema Africa was presented at Bayreuth's Cineplex and saw screenings of "Maudit!", " Sac la mort", " Mayfair", "Binti" and " The Comeback - A Tale of Irrelevance". Each film was represented by a special guest answering questions of the audience after the movie was shown. The honorary guests also sat down with researchers of the Cluster to talk in-depth about their respective projects. This playlist contains the recording of these interviews.

Cinema Africa is an annual film festival that takes place in Bayreuth Germany and is curated by Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler, the Chair of Romance & Comparative Literature at the University of Bayreuth. In January of 2023, Cinema Africa was presented at Bayreuth's Cineplex and saw screenings of "Tug of War", "Borga", "Saloum", "Bandskins" and "Gravité". Each film was represented by a special guest answering questions of the audience after the movie was shown. The honorary guests also sat down with researchers of the Cluster to talk in-depth about their respective projects. This playlist contains the recording of these interviews.

This playlist brings together all interviews recorded at the Cinema Africa 2024/25 Film Festival in Bayreuth. Featuring conversations with filmmakers, producers, and creatives from across the African continent and diaspora, the videos offer insight into the films presented, artistic processes, and the political, cultural, and historical contexts shaping contemporary African cinema. The interviews were conducted during the festival and reflect its commitment to dialogue, exchange, and the visibility of diverse cinematic voices.

This playlist brings together all interviews recorded at the Cinema Africa 2025/26 Film Festival in Bayreuth. Featuring conversations with filmmakers, producers, and creatives from across the African continent and diaspora, the videos offer insight into the films presented, artistic processes, and the political, cultural, and historical contexts shaping contemporary African cinema. The interviews were conducted during the festival and reflect its commitment to dialogue, exchange, and the visibility of diverse cinematic voices.

Here you can find the videos from the first international conference hosted by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence in October 2019. The conference was designed as a venue to start conversations between representatives from the various institutions that form part of the Cluster’s network. The themes selected for the conversations are high on the Cluster’s agenda and also at the heart of debates in African Studies today: the premises of knowledge production, African Studies and the question of diasporas, gender and diversity in African Studies, and African Studies in the digital age.

The third annual conference of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence took place in Bayreuth and Makhanda (ACC Rhodes) in July 2022. It was dedicated to the annual theme of Medialities and completes the thematic work of the previous academic year. As one of the four "heuristics" around which the cluster organises its collective theoretical and conceptual work, the topic Medialities serves as a guide for exploring the Cluster's core concepts. This playlist collects some of the talks and lectures given at the conference.

The second Cluster Conference took place in July 2021. It provided a platform for the global African Studies community to present and debate the latest developments in the field. Focusing on the topic of “Modalities” this was the first in a series of conferences devoted to the Cluster’s annual themes. As one of the four heuristic angles around which the Cluster organizes its joint theoretical and conceptual work, modalities or modes of relating serve as a guide to the study of multiplicity, relationality and reflexivity, the Cluster’s core concepts. The angle of modalities is designed to support the systematization of research findings, but also to connect to a variety of theoretical concepts derived from the modes of relations the Cluster members encounter in their research. This playlist collects some of the talks and lectures given at the conference.

In this playlist you can find recordings of the keynotes and some of the panels from the Cluster's international conference on "Spatialities" in 2023. The conference focused on spatial phenomena and their diverse expressions in cross- and interdisciplinary ways. The contributions addressed the reconfiguration of African Studies through the lens of the spatial turn, which offers innovative perspectives on the nexus of place, space, human relations, society, and culture. Highlighting the processual and performative nature of lifeworlds as well as their entanglements with space, the theme of Spatialities will help us take the discussion beyond the categories of 'North' and 'South'.

As envisaged in its concept, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence has established a Gender and Diversity Office (GDO). In the last semesters the GDO has launched a lecture and workshop series on “Intersectionality and Critical Diversity Literacy”. You can find some of the lectures in this playlist.

Here you can find videos connected to the intersectionality workshop the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence hosted in 2019.

Each year, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence starts its line of annual activities and events with the New Year Lecture open to the interested public, featuring prominent speakers who address questions and concepts central to the Cluster’s agenda. In this playlist you can find the New Year Lectures of the last years.

In this playlist the different projects of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence are presented.

Here you can find recordings of events like readings, concerts and more that the Cluster hosted.

In November 2021, Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler and Prof. Dr. Clarissa Vierke hosted an exciting and eventful day dedicated to the Indian Ocean. Music, films, dances, photographs and poetry transported the audience to the East African region, whose artistic and medial forms of expression are often shaped by the beautiful landscape and maritime lifestyle in which they were created. We were happy about the inspriring guests who came to Bayreuth for the event.

In June 2022 Thierry Boudjekeu, Ute Fendler and Gilbert Shang Ndi organised the workshop Slave Trade Memories at the Crossroads of Literature, Performance and History for the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. In this playlist you can find some of the events that took place as part of the workshop and interviews with some of the participants.