On the Status of African Oral Tradition Since 1970s: An Interview with Robert Cancel

Abstract:This interview with Robert Cancel focuses on folklore studies of Africa since the 1970s. The interview indicates that the study of African oral tradition in the 1970s and early eighties revolved around a type of structuralism that eventually became known as performance theory, which was inspired by theories of cinema coming out of the French New Wave and the American new critics. Yet, African folklore studies remained firmly grounded in the contributions of Continental Folklorists, the Finnish Folklore Fellows, and the motif-tale-type theory as well as Russian formalism.