Print Culture and Colonisation in Africa
A Colloquium
May 2015
HUMA Seminar Room, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town, Cape Town
Jointly hosted by the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town in collaboration with Oxford Brookes University and with funding from the British Academy.
The flow of technology, missionaries and merchants brought printing to African countries. The development of print culture was dispersed and intensified by the advent of colonisation. This two-day colloquium focused on the interplay between colonial interventions and local textual cultures. Papers explored the ways in which books and the book trade have been shaped by Africa’s colonial and postcolonial history, and how print cultures developed across the continent in the context of wide‑‑scale European colonisation. They also considered the history of the book in the context of apartheid South Africa.
This event was organised by Dr Elizabeth Le Roux (Pretoria), Professor Archie Dick (Pretoria) and Professor Shamil Jeppie (UCT).
Day 1 Thursday 28th May 2015
8:30 – 9:00 Registration
9:00 – 9:15 Welcome – Shamil Jeppie, UCT and Archie Dick, UP
9:15 – 10:15 Keynote – Caroline Davis, Oxford Brookes University:
For the Production of Literature in Africa to Combat Subversive Movements: British Publishers in Southern Africa 1948-1960
10:15 – 10:30 Tea
10:30 – 12:30 Session 1: Print culture and African fiction traditions
Chair: Harry Garuba
Oluwole Coker, Obafemi Awolowo University:
The Agency of Print Culture in the Development of Third – Generation Nigerian Fiction
Olabode Ibironke, Rutgers University:
The Representation of Print Culture in the African Novel
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 15:00 Session 2: Ephemera and periodicals
Chair: Lize Kriel
Andrew Lamprecht, UCT: A Loyal Mania for Royalty:
Pamphlets, Scrapbooks and Ephemera Commemorating the Royal Tour of 1947
Jane Potter, Oxford Brookes University: The War Illustrated: Depicting Africa in a Global War 1914 – 1918
Tamsyn Adams, Leiden University: ‘Problems of the Day’: Letters to The Farmers’ Weekly, 1911–1954
15:00 – 15:15 Tea
15:15 – 16:30 Session 3: Reading practices
Chair: Archie Dick
Adrien Delmas, IFAS: Books with no Press: books in the 17th century Cape colony
Corinne Sandwith, University of Pretoria: Reading Habits: Cultures of Reading and Criticism in 1940s South Africa
17:00 Book launch: The Book in Africa: Critical Debates, Edited by Caroline Davis and David Johnson
Day 2 – Friday 29th May 2015
8:30 – 9:00 Tea
9:00 – 9:45 Keynote – Lize Kriel, University of Pretoria: Digitalising ‘Old Sotho Custom’: more visible and accessible?
9:45 – 10:00 Tea
10:00 – 11:45 Session 1: Newspapers in African contexts
Chair: Caroline Davis
Rotimi Fasan, Osun State University: Alaroye: An Experiment in Print Culture, Address and Audience
Amal Ghazal, Dalhousie University: Arabic Newspapers and anti – Colonial Politics in Africa
11:45 – 12:30 Session 2: New work in publishing studies
Chair: Beth le Roux
Laetitia Cassells, University of Pretoria: The colonial influence on South African censorship from 1890
Samantha Buitendach, University of Pretoria: Translating Afrikaans books in the Low Countries
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 15:00 Session 3: Print and orality
Chair: Jane Potter
Sam Naidu, Rhodes University:
Translating, Transcribing and Publishing Folklore in Colonial South Africa: George McCall Theal’s Kaffir Folklore (1882)
Kate Highman, University of the Western Cape: From the Lips of Natives: Plagiarism, Print and Orality
Anna – Katharina Krüger, Munich: Unconfessed: Writing and Publishing South Africa’s ‘untold’ History
15:00 – 15:15 Tea
15:15 – 16:30 Session 3: Popular in Africa
Chair: Laetitia Cassells
Emma Shercliff, UCL: Romance Publishing in Africa: Cultures, colonisation and networks
Beth le Roux, University of Pretoria: Your global mystery passport: The reception of South African crime fiction in South Africa and beyond
17:00 Closing discussion:
Shamil Jeppie and Archie Dick
19:00 Documentary screening
