The volume deals with the mechanisms of the oral communication in the ancient Greek culture. Considering the critical debate about orality, the analysis of the communicative system in a predominantly oral-aural ancient society implies a reassessment and a deep reconsideration of the traces which orality embedded in the texts transmitted to us. In particular, the focus is on the 'cultural message', a set of information which is processed and transmitted vertically as well as horizontally by a living being, so to be differently from a genetically encoded information, a culturally defined process. The survey intertwines different approaches: the methodologies of cognitivism, biology, ethology, to analyze the embrional processes of the cultural messages, and the tools of historical and literary analysis, to highlight the development of the cultural messages in the traditional knowledge, their codification, transmission, and evolutions in the dialectics between orality and writing. The reconstructed pattern of the mechanisms of cultural messages in a prevailing oral-aural system cast a light on a shadowy aspect of a sophisticated communication system that has long influenced European culture.

This volume offers innovative perspectives that reassess and update so-called Oral Theory, bridging classical scholarship with cutting-edge theoretical contributions, and host a dialogue with cognitive sciences (linguistics and neuroscience), anthropology, and complexity theory. The book propounds theoretical perspectives alongside case-studies ranging from Homer and Athenian literacy to Roman law.

Draws on contemporary theory in folkloristics and drama studies, with reference to a highly diverse set of folk drama forms, to formulate a fresh understanding of folk drama.

This book is the first ever major effort to document and study hundreds of texts from an African (Ugandan) oral culture for children – folktales, riddles, and rhymes – and at the same time to make them available in the local Languages and to focus on their cultural and national value. The author surveys the history of collecting in Uganda and situates the texts in their broader geographical, historical, socio-cultural and educational Setting, including the early collecting efforts of heritage-minded Ugandans and European missionaries. Most of this preservational work is elusive and under-explored – so that the present book constitutes a major pioneering summary of Ugandan oral culture for children. The book addresses key questions such as: What happens when we collect, transcribe, and translate an oral text? How do we transfer components of the oral text to the page? What are the challenges of translating oral forms targeting specifi¬cally a child Audience, and what choices ought to be made in the process? The book provides possible ways of rethink¬ing the debate about orality and literacy as modes of representation – the generic interrelationship between the oral and the written text, and how the two can enter dialogue through transcription and translation. The latter are effective means to archive these oral forms for children and use them to promote literacy and numeracy skills in predominantly oral communities. In the current institutions of formal education in Uganda, this coexistence of orality and literacy is evident in the class¬room environment, where the oral text is turned into words on the page to encourage literacy. Through transcription, the collector is able to capture oral texts in other forms – audio, written, visual, and digital. With the new technologies available, the task is not as arduous as in the past, and the information thus captured is made available in all its wealth for purposes of instruction or entertainment.

This is the second volume on the mechanisms of oral communication in ancient Greece, focused on epic poetry, a genre with deep roots in orality. Considering the critical debate about orality and its influence on the composition, diffusion and transmission of the archaic epic poems, the survey provides a reconsideration and a reassessment of the traces of orality in the archaic epic poetry, following their adaptation in the synchronic and diachronic changes of the communicative system. Combining the methods of cognitive science, and the historical and literary analysis of the texts, the research explores the complexity of the literary message of the Greek epic poetry, highlighting its position in a system of oral communication. The consideration of structural and formal aspects, i.e. the traces of orality in the narrative architecture, in the epic diction, in the meter and the formulaic system, as well as the vestiges of the mixture of orality and writing, allows to reconstruct a dynamic frame of communicative modalities which influenced and enriched the archaic epic poetry, providing it with expressive potentialities destined to a longlasting permanence in the history of the genre.

Vol. 1- , spring 1970- , include "A Bibliography of American doctoral dissertations on African literature," compiled by Nancy J. Schmidt.

In the course of his study, Walter J. Ong offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and through time, and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self and other.