Africa's hidden histories : everyday literacy and making the self
'Africa's Hidden Histories' takes a private and personal look into the world of everyday Africans, as they put pen to paper. As it explores the innovative, intense, and sociable interest in reading and writing, the text opens new avenues for understanding a rich and hidden history of Africa's creative expression
Print Book, English, ©2006
Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, ©2006
Aufsatzsammlung
x, 451 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780253347299, 9780253218438, 0253347297, 0253218438
62136788
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Hidden Innovators in Africa Karin BarberPart 1. Diaries, Letters, and the Constitution of the Self1. "My Own Life": A. K. Boakye Yiadom's Autobiography—The Writing and Subjectivity of a Ghanaian Teacher-Catechist Stephan F. Miescher2. "What is our intelligence, our school going and our reading of books without getting money?" Akinpelu Obisesan and His Diary Ruth Watson3. The Letters of Louisa Mvemve Catherine Burns4. Ekukhanyeni Letter-Writers: A Historical Inquiry into Epistolary Network(s) and Political Imagination in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa Vukile Khumalo5. Reasons for Writing: African Working-Class Letter-Writing in Early-Twentieth-Century South Africa Keith Breckenridge6. Keeping a Diary of Visions: Lazarus Phelalasekhaya Maphumulo and the Edendale Congregation of AmaNazaretha Liz Gunner7. Schoolgirl Pregnancies, Letter-Writing, and "Modern" Persons in Late Colonial East Africa Lynn M. ThomasPart 2. Reading Cultures, Publics, and the Press8. Entering the Territory of Elites: Literary Activity in Colonial Ghana Stephanie Newell9. The Bantu World and the World of the Book: Reading, Writing, and "Enlightenment" Bhekizizwe Peterson10. Reading Debating/Debating Reading: The Case of the Lovedale Literary Society, or Why Mandela Quotes Shakespeare Isabel Hofmeyr11. "The present battle is the brain battle": Writing and Publishing a Kikuyu Newspaper in the PreMau Mau Period in Kenya Bodil Folke Frederiksen12. Public but Private: A Transformational Reading of the Memoirs and Newspaper Writings of Mercy Ffoulkes-Crabbe Audrey GadzekpoPart 3. Innovation, Cultural Editing, and the Emergence of New Genres13. Writing, Reading, and Printing Death: Obituaries and Commemoration in Colonial Asante T. C. McCaskie14. Writing, Genre, and a Schoolmaster's Inventions in the Yoruba Provinces Karin Barber15. Innovation and Persistence: Literary Circles, New Opportunities, and Continuing Debates in Hausa Literary Production Graham FurnissList of ContributorsIndex