Ferdinand de Jong is Guest Professor in African Art History during academic year 2024-25. He writes, teaches, and advises students on classical and contemporary African art, African cultural heritage and archives, museums, memorials and memory. He has previously conducted research and published on:

Decolonisation/Coloniality

Cultural heritage

Memory, museums and memorials

Decolonizing archives

Masks and masquerading

Separatism and conflict resolution

 

Previous employment

Guest Professor, Department of Art History, Free University Berlin, current

International Fellow, New Europe College, Bucharest, 2023-2024

Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of East Anglia, 2009-2023

Lecturer in Anthropology, University of East Anglia, 2000-2009

Affiliated Fellow at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, 2008-2009

 Research Fellow in the Research Programme on Globalization and the Construction of Communal Identities, supported by the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), University of Amsterdam, 1994-1999

Lehre im Wintersemester 2024/25

Decolonizing Heritage: The Reclamation of African Futures

Histories of Photography in Africa

African Art and Spirituality

Forschungskolloquium zur Kunst Afrikas

Research:

Decolonizing Heritage

Decolonizing Archives

Masquerades of Modernity

Spiritual Modernism

Single-authored monographs

2022                F. de Jong. Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal. Published by Cambridge University Press for the International African Institute: Decolonizing Heritage (cambridge.org)

2007                F. de Jong. Masquerades of Modernity: Power and Secrecy in Casamance, Senegal. Published by Edinburgh University Press and Indiana University Press for the International African Institute.

Co-edited volumes

2023                F. de Jong and J. Mapril (eds). The Future of Religious Heritage: Entangled Temporalities of the Sacred and the Secular. New York: Routledge.

2007                F. de Jong and M. Rowlands (eds), Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Republished by Routledge in 2016.

Co-edited journal issues

2016                F. de Jong (ed.) World Art 6 (1). Special issue: At Work in the Archive.

2016                P. Basu and F. de Jong (eds), Social Anthropology 24 (1). Special issue: Utopian Archives, Decolonial Affordances.

2015                F. de Jong and E. Harney (eds), African Arts 48 (2). Special issue: Art and the Archive.

2014                F. de Jong and D. Murphy (eds), Francosphères 3 (1). Special issue: Archiving the Postcolonial City.

2009                F. de Jong and P. Probst (eds), African Arts 42 (4). Special issue: Art and Heritage.

2008                F. de Jong and M. Rowlands (eds), Journal of Material Culture 13 (2). Special issue: Postconflict Heritage.

2005                F. de Jong and G. Gasser (eds), Canadian Journal of African Studies 39 (2): ‘Contested Casamance/Discordante Casamance’, special issue on the civil war in the Casamance region of Senegal.

Articles (peer-reviewed)

2024                 Translated by Sara Morais. O segredo exposto. Revelação e reconhecimento de um patrimônio imaterial no Senegal. PROA: Revista de Antropologia e Arte, v. 14: p. 1 – 30. Online: https://doi.org/10.20396/proa.v14i00.18737

2018                F. de Jong and B. Quinn-Valente. Infrastructures of Utopia: Ruination and Regeneration of the African Future. Africa 88 (2): 232-51.

2018                F. de Jong. Archive of Darkness: William Kentridge’s Black Box/Chambre Noire. African Arts 51 (1): 10-23.

2016                F. de Jong. At Work in the Archive: Introduction to Special Issue. World Art 6 (1): 3-17.

2016                F. de Jong. Animating the Archive: Trial and Testimony of a Sufi Saint. Social Anthropology 24 (1): 36-51.

2016                P. Basu and F. de Jong. Utopian Archives, Decolonial Affordances: Introduction to Special Issue. Social Anthropology 24 (1): 1-15.

2015                F. de Jong and E. Harney. Art from the Archive. African Arts 48 (2): 1-4.

2014                F. de Jong. Archiving after Empire: Saint-Louis and its Sufi Counter-Memory. Francosphères 3 (1): 25-41.

2014                F. de Jong and D. Murphy. Introduction: Archiving the Postcolonial City. Francosphères 3 (1): 1-8.

2014                F. de Jong and B. Quinn. Ruines d’Utopies: L’École William Ponty et L’Université du Futur africain. Politique africaine 135: 71-94.

2013                F. de Jong. Le sécret exposé: Révélation et reconnaissance d’un patrimoine immatériel. Gradhiva. Revue d’anthropologie et d’histoire des arts 18 : 98-123.

2010                F. de Jong. Remembering the Nation: The Murid Maggal in Saint Louis, Senegal. Cahiers d’Études africaines 197: 123-151.

2010                F. de Jong and V. Foucher. La tragédie du roi Abdoulaye ? Néomodernisme et Renaissance africaine dans le Sénégal contemporain. Politique africaine 118: 187-204.

2009                F. de Jong. Shining Lights: Self-fashioning in the Lantern Festival of Saint Louis, Senegal, African Arts 42 (4): 38-53.

2009                F. de Jong. First Word: Hybrid Heritage, African Arts 42 (4): 1, 4-5

2008                F. de Jong. Recycling Recognition: The Monument as Objet Trouvé of the Postcolony, Journal of Material Culture 13 (2): 195-214.

2008                F. de Jong and M. Rowlands. Postconflict Heritage: Introduction, Journal of Material Culture 13 (2): 131-134.

2005                F. de Jong. A Joking Nation: Conflict Resolution in Senegal. Canadian Journal of African Studies 39 (2): 389-413.

2005                F. de Jong and G. Gasser. Contested Casamance: Introduction. Canadian Journal of African Studies 39 (2) 213-229.

2003                F. de Jong. Towards an Anthropology of Modernity. Studia Africana 14: 45-46.

2002                F. de Jong. Politicians of the Sacred Grove: Citizenship and Ethnicity in Southern Senegal. Africa 72 (2): 203-220.

2002                F. de Jong. The Jola Museum: An appropriation of museum practice. Journal of Museum Ethnography 14: 4-13.

2002                F. de Jong. Secrecy and the State: The Kankurang Masquerade in Senegal. Mande Studies 2: 153-173.

2001                F. de Jong. Il Museo Diola. Identità locali, oggetti sacri e turismo nella Casamance. Etnosistemi VIII: 91-101.

2001                F. de Jong. Démasqué. Etnofoor 14 (2): 7-22.

1999                F. de Jong. Trajectories of a Mask Performance: The Case of the Senegalese Kumpo. Cahiers d’Études africaines 153: 49-71.

1998                F. de Jong. The Production of Translocality: Initiation in the Sacred Grove in South Senegal, Focaal 30-31: 61-83.

1998                P. Mark, F. de Jong, and C. Chupin, Ritual and Masking Traditions in Jola Men’s Initiation. African Arts 31 (1): 36-47, 94-95.

1997                F. de Jong. The Power of a Mask: A Contextual Analysis of the Senegalese Kumpo Mask performance, Focaal 29: 37-56.

Chapters

2025                Registers of Remembrance: Afro-Radicalism, Slavery and Mixed-Race Heritage. In: Sakiru Adebayo, Fabian Krautwald, Nancy Rushohora, and Hanna Teichler (Eds), Memory Studies in Africa: A Handbook. Brill. To be published in 2025.

2025                Religious Heritage in the Ethnographic Museum, in: Michael Rowlands, Nick Stanley & Graeme Were (Eds.), Reframing the Ethnographic Museum: Histories, Politic and Futures. UCL Press. To be published in 2025.

2023                F. de Jong. Introduction: Temporalities of Renewal in Religious Heritage. In: F. de Jong and J. Mapril (eds). The Future of Religious Heritage: Temporalities of the Sacred and the Secular, pp. 1-21. New York: Routledge.

2023                F. de Jong. Traces of the Sacred: Loss, Hope and Potentiality in Religious Heritage in England. In: F. de Jong and J. Mapril (eds). The Future of Religious Heritage: Temporalities of the Sacred and the Secular, pp. 125-46. New York: Routledge.

2022                F. de Jong. “A Sense of Presence”: The Significance of Spirituality in an English Heritage Regime. In: E. van den Heuvel, O. Salemink, I. Stengs (eds). Managing Sacralities: Competing and Converging Claims of Religious Heritage, pp. 44-66. New York: Berghahn.

2016                F. de Jong. Cultural Festivals in Senegal: Archives of Tradition, Mediations of Modernity. In D. Murphy (ed.), Performing Pan-Africanism: The First World Festival of Black and African Culture, Dakar 1966, pp. 166-179. Liverpool University Press.

2007                F. de Jong. A Masterpiece of Masquerading: Contradictions of Conservation in Intangible Heritage, in: Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa, eds. F. de Jong and M. Rowlands, pp. 161-84. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

2007                M. Rowlands and F. de Jong. Reconsidering Heritage and Memory, In: Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa, eds. F. de Jong and M. Rowlands, pp. 13-29. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

2005                F. de Jong. The Jola Museum: Poetics of Autochthony in Senegal, in: From Modern Myths to Global Encounters: Belonging and the dynamics of change in postcolonial Africa, eds. Anke van der Kwaak et al, pp. 118-126. Leiden: CNWS Publications.

2004                F. de Jong. The Social Life of Secrets, in: Situating Globality: African Agency in the Appropriation of Global Culture, eds. W. van Binsbergen and R. van Dijk, pp. 257-276. Leiden, Boston: Brill Publishers.

2004                F. de Jong. The Forbidden Masquerade: Ethnicity and the Management of Ritual in Senegal, in: Roots and Rituals: The Construction of Ethnic Identities, eds. T. Dekker et al., pp. 499-516. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.

2003                F. de Jong. Globalising the Self, Localising the Other. Engage 13: 38-42.

1999                F. de Jong. The Production of Translocality: Initiation in the Sacred Grove in Southern Senegal, in: Modernity on a Shoestring: Dimensions of Globalization, Consumption and Development in Africa and Beyond, eds. R. Fardon, W. van Binsbergen, and R. van Dijk, pp. 315-340. Leiden and London: EIDOS in association with the African Studies Centre Leiden and the Centre of African Studies London.

1998                F. de Jong. De Verbeelding van Volkscultuur: Maskers, Maskerades, en hun Representatie in Musea en Folklore, in: Yearbook Netherlands Open Air Museum 4, pp. 84-109. Nijmegen/Arnhem: SUN/NOM.

1995                F. de Jong. The Making of a Jola Identity: Jola Inventing their Past and Future, in: Popular Culture: Beyond Historical Legacy and Political Innocence, ed. J. van der Klei, pp. 133-150. Proceedings CERES/CNWS Summer School 1994. Utrecht: CERES.

Working paper

1999                Revelation and Secrecy: Cultural Models of Performance in the Casamance Revolt. Disaster sites no 4. Wageningen Disaster Studies. ISBN 90 76657 04 1.

Online

2024                Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal. ACHS Currents in Critical Heritage Studies, 1 April 2024: online: https://www.criticalheritagestudies.org/currents-critical-heritage/2024/4/1/decolonizing-heritage-time-to-repair-in-senegal

2022                            Senegal is decolonizing its heritage, and in the process reclaiming its future. The Conversation, 16 May 2022. Online. 8,870 reads by December 2023.