Canon Vs. Culture

Accounting for Differences

Teaching and Researching African Literatures

BERNTH LINDFORS

Teaching and researching African literatures are relatively new academic enterprises. Forty years ago hardly anyone was engaged in such activities, but today hundreds of teachers throughout the world are introducing thousands of students to the vigorous literatures that have emerged on the African continent. These educators are also writing numerous books and articles on what they teach, producing a voluminous literature on these literatures. Within a single generation they have transformed the study of African literatures into a young but respectable discipline, a distinct branch of scholarship with its own history, politics, rituals, and polemics. One could ...