NEWS
Literacy in Oral Cultures: Call for Papers
1 July 2010
Literacy in Oral Cultures: conflicts, compromises and complications
Date: 24-25 November 2010
Location: University of Glasgow
Deadline for submissions: 14 August 2010
Before Western colonial intervention, the culture and bureaucracy of sub-Saharan Africa was predominantly transmitted orally through ritual, storytelling, music, etc. For many years, the literate western colonial bureaucracy laboured to transform Africa and the evidence of the interaction between these two cultures is documented and preserved in the national archives of almost all African countries. This is, however, an incomplete record of bureaucratic process and ownership; the voices of Africans are largely silent in this official record.
A free two-day symposium, Literacy in oral cultures: conflicts, compromises and complications, is hosted by the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) within the School of Humanities of the University of Glasgow. This symposium will provide a forum for renowned academics in African history both from the UK and Africa, surviving British former administrators in colonial Africa, UK scholars who have experience in using the archives in Africa, archivists, post-graduate students, researchers and many others, to discuss a range of critical issues surrounding media and memory in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Africa. The symposium keynote speakers will be Ivan Murambiwa, Director of the National Archives of Zimbabwe and Professor Kings Phiri of the University of Malawi.
Although the conference is primarily for postgraduate students, everyone is invited to submit abstracts of papers and presentations for one of the three student panel discussions whose suggested themes are outlined below. Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be emailed to LOCsymposium@gmail.com by 14th August 2010. Applicants should include their names, details of their institution and phase of study, and indicate for which panel they consider their paper most relevant.
Full details can be found here.
