This is the 50th year of the continuous publishing of Research in African Literatures and African Literature Today, two frontline journals of Africanist literary criticism whose statures in the profession attest eloquently to the most enduring outcomes of the intellectual exertions of the ALA.
To recognize, and take stock of, the ramifications of half a century of uninterrupted, significant criticism and theorizations about African literatures and cultures, ALA invites retrospective and prospective papers on the institutional, material grounds of the production of African literature. ALA is interested in critical examinations of how the establishments have impacted literary and cultural productions. They are even more interested in explorations of which, and how, literary forms have shaped the establishments and institutions of African literature in the various locations they have occupied historically.
Quirky, trenchant, and perhaps truculent, discussions are particularly welcomed. For example, what is it about poetry that drives so many prizes but the form is not much discussed in criticism? Is theater dead? Does the rise of video indicate that Africa is becoming post-literary? Whatever happened to literacy? Where in Africa is orality? Why do Afriphone verbal arts thrive in electronic media but not in print? Is the secret in the form? Do festivals exist still? Whither intermediality?
To learn more about the conference and to register for tickets, please visit the African Literature Association website.
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
