Introduction: Orality and technauriture of African literatures

Authors

  • Daniela Merolla Leiden University Institute for the Arts in Society, Leiden, Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v51i1.8

Keywords:

erosion, innovation, orality, technauriture, technology

Abstract

African oral cultures as well as their oral literatures are vigorous. True, in some cases, elements of such literatures are at risk of disappearing when styles and texts are linked to specific languages and rituals that are no longer performed as they were in the past; in other cases, the very limited number of speakers has drawn local and global attention to endangered languages and the need for their revitalization Still, such a “sense of an ending” needs to be balanced by the observation that the large majority of the verbal arts and the cultural groups that produce them have, by and large, integrated oral and new ways of expression—from hip hop to various forms of theatre, world fusion music and digital orality. Changing oral genres and “technauriture” in African literatures are at the heart of the analyses and discussions presented in this number of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. The included articles derive from the 9th Conference of ISOLA (International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa) held at the University of Venda (South Africa) from June 28 to July 1, 2012.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Daniela Merolla, Leiden University Institute for the Arts in Society, Leiden, Netherlands

    Daniela Merolla is Associate Professor in African Literatures and Media at the Department of African Languages and Cultures, Leiden University Institute for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), The Netherlands. She is the director of the audio-visual series Verba Africana (Leiden University). Her latest book is the edited volume (with J. Jansen and K. Naït-Zerrad) Multimedia Research and Documentation of Oral Genres in Africa—The Step Forward (LIT Verlag, 2012).

References

...

Downloads

Published

2014-04-01

Issue

Section

Research articles

How to Cite

Merolla, D. (2014). Introduction: Orality and technauriture of African literatures. Tydskrif Vir Letterkunde, 51(1), 80-90. https://doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v51i1.8