ALMEDA is exploring new methodological and theoretical approaches to the problems faced by African expressive cultures in the formal archive. In this spirit, we will be publishing a series of exploratory pieces, meant to encourage discussion with other scholars and stakeholders in the field of African literary and expressive cultures and cultural heritage. These ALMEDA Pamphlets will allow us to make public our results more immediately than we can through formal academic publishing.
We will also be engaging in more traditional publications, all of which will be full open access and will be made available on our results page.
While we are building our searchable data repository, we will also be publishing some of our preliminary data sets here, since these may be useful even in their raw and unlinked versions. Let us know if you find our datasets helpful or if you have any suggestions, corrections or additions: almeda@uu.se
The ALMEDA pamphlet series is a space for preliminary discussion of the methodological, theoretical or empirical challenges and opportunities of critically investigating and engaging with literary metadata in the field of African Literary Studies.
ALMEDA Pamphlet #1 Ashleigh Harris ‘The Literary Metadata of African Little and Popular Magazines’, January 2024.
All publications of data and articles are open access and can be freely accessed via the links below.
Datasets:
Alfieri, Noemi. ‘Poesia de combate, nouvelle somme de poésie du monde noir, black orpheus: lusophone african literatures and their networks’. Zenodo, 29 January 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14763590.
Harris, Ashleigh. ‘Literary Content in MOTO Magazine, Zimbabwe 1972–1999’. Zenodo, 30 January 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14773072.
Harris, Ashleigh. ‘Literary Content in ZONK! African People’s Pictorial 1949–1964’. Zenodo, 1 February 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14784842.
Hållén, Nicklas. ‘Jalada Literary Magazine: Full Catalogue’. Zenodo, 10 February 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14844153.
Sarkar Nilsson, Eric. ‘Digital Comic Books in Nigeria: Comic Republic’. Zenodo, 31 January 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14782125
Sarkar Nilsson, Eric. ‘South African Sci-fi and Horror: Something Wicked Collection’. Zenodo, 1 February 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14784457.
van Loenen, M., et al. Poets’ Biographical Data: Poetry Africa Festival 1997–2022. Zenodo, 3 Mar. 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14963202
Journal articles:
Harris, Ashleigh. ‘African Literary Metadata and Makerere University’s Library’ Research in African Literatures, vol. 55, no. 1 (Spring 2024). 1–27; https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.00042
A new dataset is the outcome of a collaboration with the Centre for Creative Arts, UKZN. This dataset includes biographical information on all the poets who performed at the Poetry Africa festival from 1997 to 2022. The dataset builds on data compiled by University of Kwa-Zulu Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts,…
This article provides a case study of the history of the cataloging system at Makerere University Library and discusses how this has come to shape the body of African literature housed there. The article is available as an open access publication. Harris, Ashleigh. “African Literary Metadata and Makerere University’s Library.” Research…
We’re delighted to share the completion of a project carried out by poet and Swahili lecturer (at the Centre for African Studies, Copenhagen University) Lisa Mumbi Macharia. This dataset documents over 10 years of spoken word poetry performances in the city of Nairobi. Mumbi recorded 628 performances from between March…
Click here to read more about our activities in 2024