ALMEDA in collaboration with the Centre of African Studies, Copenhagen University invites you to an online workshop on Thursday 4 September at 13:15 – 16:00 (Central European Summer Time).
In this workshop scholars will discuss the implications approaching street preaching as performance and oral literary genre. Viewing publicly delivered sermons as part of the literary and expressive cultures in African contexts entails looking closely at conceptualizations of performance as ever-changing and ephemeral on the one hand, and the idea of the text as ‘fixed’ on the other (Barber, 2005).
This perspective invites reflections on methods of capture of street preaching, whether through participant observation or instances of audio-visual remediatietons, that in turn require a closer look on the materiality and circulation of oratures. Furthermore, it requires a specific focus on the ways religious/literary genres such as street preaching emerge and become embedded in local languages.
Thursday, 4 September 2025
Time: 13:15 – 16:00 (Sweden); 11:15 – 14:00 (Ghana, Nigeria)
Online: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/69550619815
13:15-13:25 – Introductory words
13:30-14:00 – Karen Lauterbach (Center for African Studies, University of Copenhangen ) & Afan Azhang Kazé (University of Jos)
14:00-14:30 – Isaac Boaheng (Christian Service University College, Ghana)
14:30-14:50 – Break
14:50-15:20 – Joseph Oduro Frimpong, Ashesi University
15:20-16:00 – General discussion
16:00 – Closing remarks
ALMEDA postdoctoral fellow, Gloria Ajami Makokha, presented a paper, “Digitizing Jina: Providing Visibility to The Khanga’s Oral Literary Messages”, at the International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA) conference, held at the University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria, 9–12 July 2025. Makokha’s research project focuses on the ways in which the Khanga…
We have published two new datasets on our Zenodo platform that will interest anyone working on print and online literary magazines. The classic anti-apartheid South African magazine Staffrider includes around 1770 individual texts and was published between 1978 to 1993, while the Ugandan-based Lawino content is much more recent (2014-2015).…
In our new ALMEDA pamphlet, postdoctoral fellow Oulia Makkonen interviews Coffi Abdoul Karim, a producer of the Ivorian cultural programs Théâtre de chez nous and Ce soir au village. The interview is part of a larger exploration in Makkonen’s work of the theatrical scene and its relationship to television history in Côte d’Ivoire from the…
Ursula Oberst and Ashleigh Harris attended the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) summit in Windhoek, Namibia from 19-23 May and presented a paper titled ‘Linking Multilingual Open Data on African Literature and Culture with Wikidata: Experiences, Challenges, and Vision of the ALMEDA Project’. AfLIA works with Libraries and National Library Associations, Governments and Government Agencies responsible…