Today, the Royal African Society and the Social Science Research Council jointly launch a new website and blog, African Arguments Online.

Africa has long been the locus and the focus for the most impassioned and intellectually-informed debates. But for many years, specialist Africa coverage in the world’s media has been in decline, alongside the withering of many African journals and magazines that used to provide a forum for debate and opinion. African news and views have moved to the web, notably with the spectacular success of www.AllAfrica.com. But there has been no comparable Africa-wide site which provides in-depth analysis and debate of the issues and controversies that animate the continent today. With the launch of African Arguments Online the RAS and SSRC intend to fill this gap.

African Arguments Online will bring build upon the book series of the same name, published by Zed Books in the UK and Palgrave Macmillan in the US, to bring African issues to a wider audience with the rapidity of a news magazine and the reach of the internet. A number of leading public intellectuals””writers, scholars, activists””will contribute regular columns. Debates will be held on the books in the African Arguments series, engaging the authors in a conversation about their volumes and the arguments they are pursuing. And we will be convening debates on the issues of the day as they arise””beginning with what Africa should ask and expect from the new Administration of the United States of America.