The Book in Africa

'The Book in Africa' One-Day Symposium
Saturday 20th October 2012
The Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London.

Download the programme [PDF, 862 KB]

This one-day symposium provided a forum for the discussion of new research and critical debates about print culture in Africa, with contributions from scholars of book history and postcolonial studies, together with African authors and publishers. The event was a collaborative venture between the Open University’s English Department and the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies (OICPS) at Oxford Brookes University. 

The symposium examined the production, dissemination and reception of the book in colonial and postcolonial Africa; the development of print culture and its implications for larger questions of nationality and colonial politics in Africa; the impact of print production on literary cultures and linguistic identities in Africa; the emergence and constitution of reading publics in Africa; the legal, social, political and economic forces that have affected print culture Africa and the current state of and immediate prospects for print culture in Africa. 

The symposium aimed to bring together leading scholars in African literature with interests in literary and cultural history, publishing studies and the history of the book. Invited speakers are research active in the field, with recent or forthcoming publications directly dealing with the symposium topic.   

The programme is available to download in PDF format.

Programme organisers: Caroline Davis c.davis@brookes.ac.uk; Alex Tickell a.tickell@open.ac.uk; Shaf Towheed S.S.Towheed@open.ac.uk; David Johnson D.W.Johnson@open.ac.uk.