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.

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.

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.

Explores an old cultural problem in new ways: how do we deal with ageing within societies in which the young are so numerous? How do we deal with age changes and the life cycle in contemporary Africa? While biology has suggested that there is a common universal way of dealing with ageing, African societies show an enormous diversity, an extraordinary resilience and an ever-growing adaptation to social change and difficulties.