Oral Traditions in World Literature – Addis Ababa Conference

By |2019-11-04T12:53:25+01:00July 2nd, 2019|Categories: Events, Horn of Africa, Itineraries, Literary Criticism, Orality and Oral Forms|Tags: , , , , , |

In this conference, we argue that oral traditions are a vital component of world literature, and not only as an antecedent to written literatures, but in their own right. The conference seeks to move past the characterisation of oral literature as traditional, locally constrained, and less aesthetically complex than written literatures. We will show instead that oral traditions are a modern and dynamic form of literary expression everywhere around the world, sometimes able to circulate across long distances.