In August 2023, Ashleigh Harris partnered with ALMEDA researcher Pedzisai Maedza (University College Dublin), Nkululeko Sibanda (University of Pretoria), and Kelvin Chikonzo (University of Harare) to catalogue the manuscript collection of Rooftop Productions’ Theatre in the Park, directed by Daves Guzha.
In addition to cataloguing the 253 manuscripts in Rooftop Productions’ collection (all data is available on request), we also discovered the remnants of a fragmented archive of the National Theatre Organisation of Zimbabwe. Some materials from the NTO archive, including some historically significant materials such as the typed manuscript for a play, A Dying Beauty by Stanlake Samkange, has been incorporated into Rooftop Theatre’s collection. Another part of the NTO collection is being catalogued at the REPS theatre in Zimbabwe. The third part of the collection we found severely damaged in an open-air cage where it has been left to the elements. We are currently attempting to find out whether there is an available catalogue of this material so that we can assess whether to initiate a salvage exercise or not.
ALMEDA will be offering two project-related PhD courses in 2025. One on the methods of Distant Reading and its implications for African Literature, and the other on Literary Metadata and the Digital Humanities and their importance for the future African literary archive. Please spread the word. These courses are free,…
The ALMEDA project is proud to be working with the NGO, FEMRITE (https://femrite.org) a Ugandan Women Writers’ Association that has inspired, supported and published African women writers from across the continent. FEMRITE has published numerous anthologies of poetry, short stories and Creative Non-Fiction, as well as novels, autobiographies, translations and…
La revue malienne _Sankoré_ pourrait être considérée comme reflétant un processus de valorisation des langues et littératures africaines dans le cadre du projet de décolonisation des années 1970. Sankoré – une revue de vulgarisation scientifique avec, entre autres, des sections consacrées aux nouvelles, légendes, proverbes, poèmes, devinettes, est un produit…
By Max van Loenen and Malin Runefelt During the spring of 2024, we collected metadata on African literary magazines published during the decolonization period of the 60s and 70s. ALMEDA creates data on and then links these ephemeral works. An important aspect of the collection process has been linking authors…