Initiation à la tradition orale africaine / Introduction to African Traditional Oral Literature

This course is intended for students who wish to explore the fundamentals of the African oral tradition. Indeed it is impossible to understand the African Francophone literature if you ignore the traditional patrimony kept alive by the storytellers and the griots.

The course is divided in three parts:
1) The fundamental myths among the Dogons, the Fulanis, the Bambaras, the Bantus. Who has created the World, and what are the links which binds Mankind to Nature and the Gods?
2) The different forms of speech: the epics, the tales, the proverbs, and the riddles
3) The influence of the oral tradition on the novel and African Francophone cinema

Required Texts:
Les Contes initiatiques peuls, Ba, Stock
Maxi Proverbes Africains, Cabakulu, Marabou
Les Contes d’Amadou Koumba, Diop, 61
Soundjata or L’Epopee Mandingue, Niane, 60
La Belle Historie de Leuk-le-Lièvre, Senghor/ Sadji, FR Poc