LIT Verlag Research Articles

Oil in Nigeria: conflict and litigation between oil companies and village communities by JEDRZEJ GEORG FRYNAS Munster, Hamburg and London: Lit Verlag 1999. Pp. 263. DM49.80 (pbk.).

<b>Oil in Nigeria: conflict and litigation between oil companies and village communities</b> by J<scp>EDRZEJ</scp> G<scp>EORG</scp> F<scp>RYNAS</scp> Munster, Hamburg and London: Lit Verlag 1999. Pp. 263. DM49.80 (pbk.).

Forum

In RAL 29.4 (1998): 213-16, Christopher L. Miller reviewed Literary Theory and African Literature/Théorie littéraire et littérature africaine, edited by Gugler, Lüsebrink, and Martini (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 1994), and wrote about my paper, "La littérature négro-africaine de langue française: prise de parole et situation de communication": "Bernard Mouralis offers a very general view of 'problems posed by the analysis of black African literary texts' (71), proposing an unexceptionable [sic] dialectic between the 'purely textual' and 'the situation of discourse' (72)." That is far from the truth: my paper is not a "general view," since it examines three concrete examples. Moreover, I believe I have posed a fundamental literary problem about the place of the meaning of a text: does this meaning exist in the text itself, through particular internal properties, or in the interstices between the text and its context? If such a reflection is not theory, I would ask Miller to tell us what theory is. It would indeed be interesting to know his point of view on these matters.

Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson. Phallological Museum

Ever since first opening its doors to the public in 1997, the Icelandic Phallological Museum (Icelandic: Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn) has garnered deserved attention across the globe for its collection of phallic specimens belonging to every species of mammal in Iceland. Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, associate professor of Museum Studies at the University of Iceland, has in this timely volume published by German company LIT Verlag, aimed to demystify the Phallological Museum by portraying the various social, historical and cultural contexts in which it is situated.