African Literary Metadata
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Preliminary Results

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

Pamphlets

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.

Preliminary Data (available on request)

We have datasets of all literary material from the following sources. This data will be uploaded into the ALMEDA data repository, but is also available in discrete datasets on request.

  • Black Orpheus: A Journal of African and Afro-American Literature, (Nigeria) compiled by Max van Loenen
  • Busara, (Kenya) (incomplete) compiled by Max van Loenen
  • Comic Republic, (Nigeria) full range as of March 2024, compiled by Eric Sarkar Nilsson. https://www.thecomicrepublic.com
  • Darlite, (Tanzania) (not complete) compiled by Max van Loenen
  • Dhana, (Kenya) (not complete) compiled by Malin Runefelt
  • Grace Magazine, 1964-1966, (South Africa), Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris
  • Drum Magazine 1951-1965, (South Africa) Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris.
  • Hi-Note Magazine 1954-1957, (South Africa) (not complete), Literary Content , compiled by Ashleigh Harris
  • Jalada Magazine, (Kenya), compiled by Nicklas Hållén
  • Lawino, (Uganda), compiled by Monica Härnqvist (ASCL)
  • MOTO Magazine (Zimbabwe), Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris
  • Nexus Magazine, (Kenya) compiled by Max van Loenen
  • Odi Magazine (Malawi) compiled by Malin Runefelt
  • Okyeame, (Ghana) (not complete) compiled by Malin Runefelt
  • Rooftop Theatre Productions, (Zimbabwe) theatrical manuscripts in the Rooftop archive, compiled by Pedzisai Maedza, Nkululeko Sibanda, Kelvin Chikonzo and Ashleigh Harris
  • Something Wicked 2006-2012, (South Africa) Literary Content, compiled by Eric Sarkar Nilsson. https://somethingwicked.co.za/magazine/
  • Staffrider Magazine, (South Africa) Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris. https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/st
  • Swahili Newspaper Literature (Tanzania and Kenya) from Taifa Weekly and Baraza Weekly, 1960-1980. A collection of over 300 serialised Swahili novellas and novels. Compiled by Malin Runefelt and Max van Loenen
  • Ta Adesa Online Magazine, (Ghana) compiled by Nicklas Hållén. https://taadesa.org
  • The Township’s Wife 1968-1969, (South Africa) Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris
  • Transition Magazine, (Uganda) incomplete, compiled by Malin Runefelt and Max van Loenen
  • Umma Magazine, (Tanzania) compiled by Malin Runefelt
  • Zonk! Magazine, 1949-1964, (South Africa) Literary Content, compiled by Ashleigh Harris

 

New postdoc to catalogue Khangas

The Khanga/Kanga/Leso is a traditional cotton cloth with mixed designs, colors and messages worn by women along the coastal regions of Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar. The popularization of the Khanga can be traced back to 1887, when the Kaderdina family founded the Hajee Essak Limited company, which pioneered the mass…

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Lecture: Flora Losch on West African audiovisual archives

Join us for the next lecture in the ALMEDA seminar series! Flora Losch (EHESS – Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) will present her research on West African audiovisual archives – past and present. The lecture will be held on Zoom Time and Date: Wednesday 27 November, 13:15-14:45 CEST,…

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Popular Cultural Responses to Kenya’s 2010 Constitution: Machakos Book Workshop

Between 1–4 October, team member Nicklas Hållén visited Machakos University, where he and Dr. Charles Kebaya ran a second of three planned PhD and MA student workshop on popular cultural production in Kenya. The student participants have been working diligently on six different projects which will be collected in a…

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Lecture: Afrikaaps and the Literary Archive, Riaan Oppelt

On Tuesday 15 October, our case-study researcher Riaan Oppelt (Stellenbosch University) gave a lecture on his ALMEDA case-study material. You can watch the lecture here:

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