In Africa and the African diaspora, knowledge is often produced, circulated, and critiqued in “minor forms”—small-scale oral, visual, material, and digital ephemera such as proverbs, folktales, rites, images, social media, and other non-canonical modes of expression that structure everyday cultural life but are frequently marginalized within dominant academic and cultural hierarchies. While “major forms” such as the literary canon, the national archive, and peer-reviewed scholarship obscure the complexity and vitality of African cultural production, minor forms interact with, resist, coexist alongside, and reshape those dominant modes. Minor forms sustain transgenerational memory, travel across local and transnational spaces, adapt to changing social realities, and participate in contemporary artistic and digital publics.

This issue of Public Humanities invites articles that examine the nature, functions, and impact of minor forms in African culture. Rather than treat minor forms merely as objects to recover, the issue approaches them methodologically: minor forms generate theory from the bottom up. Attention to form—the “how” of cultural signification not just the “why”— illuminates complex structures of power, memory, and meaning in Africa. Key problems addressed may include the marginalization of orature and ephemeral cultural practices, the ethical and methodological challenges of documentation and digitization, and the tendency to frame cultures themselves as “minor” within global hierarchies.

Submission Guidelines

Article submissions should be no more than 5,000 words, not including abstract, footnotes, and bibliography.

Submissions should be written in accessible language for a wide readership across and beyond the humanities: see How to Write for Public Humanities.

Authors should consult the journal’s Author Instructions prior to submission.

All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission: see the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.  

Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style.

Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal.

 Contacts

The editor is happy to discuss potential articles: contact Elisabeth Abena Osei - losei123@umd.edu.

Questions regarding peer review can be sent to the Public Humanities inbox at publichumanities@cambridge.org.