The title I so optimistically chose many months ago has, predictably, turned out hopelessly over-ambitious. There is no way I could adequately even begin to chart the many developments in the study of the oral literatures of Africa during the last generation, developments to which so many of the ISOLA conference participants have made such distinguished contributions or are now carrying forward for the future. So in the end I decided that I could best contribute by taking us back to the context in the 1960s, the period when I first became involved in African studies, to share some selective personal reflections on the differences between then and now.
Some early mistakes
Looking back over the years of my engagement in the growing study of African oral literatures brings sharply to my mind an awareness of my earlier mistakes. I will gear my offering here to reflecting on some of these. For a number of those failings are ones, I believe, that scholars would be less likely to fall into t...
