143201 VO Writing and Publishing in Contemporary East Africa (2024S)

Over the last two decades, the African literary landscape has changed dramatically. Web publishing, literary blogs and online magazines in the field of digital media, new art and literature initiatives and funding channels as well as transnational networks between the diaspora and the continent are bringing a new dynamic to cultural production. This course takes a look at organisations and artists, media and publishers in the East African region.
After a general introduction, we will focus on individual initiatives and their publications and discuss them in the context of language policy and multilingualism, education, literature and gender in national and transnational contexts. Lecture with PowerPoint, reading and discussion of texts.
The aim of the course is a critical understanding of the social, cultural and political dimensions of writing and publishing in the East African context. The lecture builds on the content of the lecture "Literatures of East Africa" in WS 2023/24, but can also be attended independently of it.