Beyond Oral/Digital: Ghanaian Electronic Literature as a Paradigm for African Digital Textuality

This dissertation speaks to a massive dearth of research in African electronic literature (African e-lit), a discipline that boasts a growing number of works but little scholarship. With African literature incorporating digital technology into its creative process, and with electronic literary criticism focusing on areas outside its predominantly western cannon, African e-lit positions itself as an important area of scholarly endeavor. After considering the implications of placing African e-lit as the direction in which both African literature and electronic literature take, this dissertation looks at three different genres of African e-lit in the context of oral literature. There are analyses of examples of concrete poetry, conceptual poetry, and mobile video games, all from Ghana. Ultimately, the aim of this project is to ascertain the ways in which oral tradition influences the nature, form, and shape of African electronic literature.