AFRICAN WRITING AND TEXT by Simon Battestini
This work presents the conclusions of more than three decades of research
in Africa. The author posits that the history of the relationship between
Africa and the rest of the world is still impeded by a misunderstanding
about the definition of writing. He examines numerous texts and points out
their limitations and ideological conditionings. He refutes the stereotype
of an Africa without writing, literature, history, or culture, dominated by
oral traditions ñ a myth created to justify the colonial enterprise, which
unfortunately still remains with us against evidence and logic. Collected
data and its analysis, in fact, show that both oral tradition and writing
coexist everywhere in Africa.
By bringing African data into the sciences of writing and text,
definitions, categories and reasoning about the writing-text relationship
are transformed, thus leading to the proposal of a new grammatology
perceiving the text as a product of writing.
Simon Battestini interdisciplinary approach to a whole continent of text
and writing opens many new fields of African studies and builds the
foundation of a truly universal grammatology integrating all writing
systems.
Translated by Professor Henri Evans from the French text published in
May 1997: Ecriture et Texte, Contribution Africaine. Les Presses de
l'Université Laval (Saint Nicolas, Québec, Canada) and PrÈsence Africaine
(Paris, France).
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Contents
Foreword by the author; Preface by Professor Guy Spielmann (Georgetown
University). Chapter 1. Visible Speech, Seized ThoughtÝ: Defining Concepts:
Writing and Thought and / or Speech; Chapter 2. Africa and Writing:
Introducing a Continent of Writing Systems and Texts as a Critique of
Current Writing Studies; Chapter 3. History: About the Relationship of
History and Writing Studies; Chapter 4. Society: Of the Life of Signs
within African Societies; Chapter 5. Art: Art as Text and Art Context;
Chapter 6. Paroles: From Spoken Words to Thought-Writing; Chapter 7.
Knowledge: Of the Necessity to Evaluate Knowledge Through Its Perceivable
Symptoms; Chapter 8. Text: From Written Text to Culture; Chapter 9.
Literature: Effects of African Writings on Other Cultures; Conclusion:
Towards a Theory of Writing and Text; Bibliography (800 references); Index
(200 entries). 472 pages.
The author
A Georgetown University Professor of French and African Studies, Simon
Battestini, trained as a linguist and semioticist in Dakar (Senegal),
conducted research and taught in Africa (1951-1983) and in America
(1983-1998). All of his publications are inspired by discourse analysis. In
1964, he created with others, the field of African Literary Studies. Now
retired in France, he is preparing, with a team of scholars, the
Encyclopedic Dictionary of African Writing and Text.
< simon.battestini@wanadoo.fr >
*African Writing and Text *can be ordered from:
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Legas Press, 68, Kamloops Ave, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1V 7C9
Legas Press, 2908, Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6B 3S8
or by e-mail to sbrocchi@uottawa.ca
Or by fax to Professor Leonard Sbrocchi, fax (613) 562 5138.
*Ecriture et texte, contribution africaine* can be ordered from:
Les Presses de l'Université Laval, Distribution Univers, 845, rue
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or 1 800 859-7474 . Fax (418) 831 40 21. $37.45.
Add within Canada $3.50 or from outside Canada $7.20 for postage.
or
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TelÝ. 01 43 54 13 74. Fax. 01 43 25 96 67. French Francs 220.
Available also on line (alapage, bol Ö) at 209 FF