African traditions to take center stage in Yaounde workshops

2009-11-07 13:03:41 GMT2009-11-07 21:03:41 (Beijing Time) xinhuanet

YAOUNDE, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A series of conferences and workshops on African traditions will take place on Nov. 23-25 at the University of Yaounde in Cameroon, organizers told Xinhua on Friday.

Under the theme "Tradition and Modernity", these meetings aim to identify the challenges to African culture in globalization.

They are organized by the Center of International Studies in Biology and Anthropology (CEIBA) in Barcelona, Spain and the regional center for research and documentation on oral traditions and development of African languages (CERDOTOLA).

"The objective is to awaken the interest of students to learn and master in African studies while insisting on the fact that Africa needs to know herself, to know her identity so that she can define her own modernity," said executive secretary of CERDOTOLA Charles Binam Biko.

"The universities constitute a breeding ground for new African studies, which, according to the vision of CERDOTOLA, needs to go past the contemplative and romantic approaches in order to enter in the phase of appropriation of concepts and development of knowledge on Africa by the intelligentsia and the African youths themselves," he added.

The workshops to be guided by Spanish and Cameroonian experts will translate into four conferences and a symposium.

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