At the heart of this module are a range of ways in which African experiences have been rendered and recollected through human words and voices over time. It distinguishes between 'tradition', 'history' and the creative genius of African people in bringing about a corpus of ideas and experiences passed around in African communities orally, outside, before and after literacy. Students will gain a critical appreciation of oral forms and trace how they have been studied and archived by generations of scholars seeking to find an authentic equivalent source to modern writing. We will develop a critical appreciation of the dynamism of oral sources beyond the elusive search for an 'oral historical narrative' recognising that even the word 'history' itself conjures different meanings in different African languages and approaching taken for granted concepts such as 'tradition' and 'history' with due caution. By the end of the module, students will be familiar with a range of forms of orality and understand how these survive in the digital age. In recent years, the volume of voice/oral based performances has increased due to real time communication, sharing and access as well as the ability to store large amounts of such data. This module will equip students with up-to-date methods and methodologies for processing this data and co-creating old and new oral forms in Africa.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Critically evaluate a range of African oral forms
Critically assess the development of African oral historiography
Debate the idea of 'authentic orality' and/or the existence of 'pure oral societies'
Critically evaluate the impact, challenges and opportunities for African orality in the digital age
