Stories and Empathy in a Time of Crisis: An African Viewpoint

Abstract

AbstractThis Presidential Lecture explores the ways in which African orality provides the means for a sentimental education in an era of crisis. Quayson notes how the essentially polysemic character of the genres of orality have influenced the ways he understands both literature and the African city, two areas of keen interest. After tracing the texture of Accra’s trotro (passenger vehicle) slogans and the continuity of sentimental education from orality to social media, Quayson concludes by calling for a new interdisciplinary paradigm that would explore the polysemy of African orality alongside the hypertextual algorithms behind today’s social media and the internet.