Concept
Bogumil (Bogumił) Jewsiewicki Koss (born 1942 in Vilnius) is a Polish-Canadian history and an Africanist specialising in the history of Central Africa, notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the social usage of visual memory. Jewsiewicki obtained a Master's degree in ethnography in 1964 and a PhD in 1968, both at the University of Łódź in Poland. From 1968 through 1974 Jewsiewicki taught at Institut supérieur pédagogique de Bukavu, Université Lovanium of Kinshasa and Université Nationale du Zaïre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, later Zaire. He then emigrated to Canada to work at Université de Saint-Boniface in Winnipeg and in the Département d’histoire of Université Laval since 1977, becoming a full professor in the comparative history of memory (histoire comparée de la mémoire) in 1985. Jewsiewicki was a researcher at the Centre d'études africaines of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, and curated exhibitions on Congolese popular urban painting and on photography at the Museum for African Art in New York (1998-1999) and at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna. In 2009, he retired from his teaching post and continued as a researcher and member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les lettres, les arts et les traditions (CÉLAT, fr) at Université Laval. Jewsiewicki was the recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association, and in 2007 he won Marius Barbeau Medal from the Association canadienne d’ethnologie et de folklore (Folklore Studies Association of Canada, ACEF FSAC). Jewsiewicki's collection of popular Congolese paintings was acquired by the Royal Museum for Central Africa at Tervuren, Belgium. A festschrift was published in Jewsiewicki's honour in 2009 entitled Images, mémoires et savoirs. Une histoire en partage avec Bogumil Koss Jewsiewicki with Karthala, edited by Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem and Mudimbe-Boyi.