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Several religious and theological approaches to culture in African studies have assessed the idea of inculturation as a helpless incorporation of cultural values from one culture into another. We showed in this article that this is a limited perspective to the process of inculturation, and that this limitation is the reason for the failure of several attempts at inculturation. We assessed inculturation from the angle of marketisation of cultures, and we argued that the adoption or adaptation of cultural elements from one culture into another should be an agentic rationalisation process. The article demonstrated that the rationalisation process is validated by pre-adoption pragmatic experiences or expectations such that the feature(s) being adopted has either initially proven – or at least is expected – to be more useful than what it is meant to replace or enhance. We concluded that a rationalisation approach to inculturation is based on an initial recognition of conceptual entities and practices, the need to adopt them, and a follow-up justification for this need. Without such perspective, an inculturation effort will not be successfully completed, sustainable or mutually respectful. Contribution: Our primary contribution is that we tried to provide broad, agentic, rational approach to inculturation. This contribution is important in sub-fields of Christian Church History and Philosophy of Religion. It properly aligns with this journal’s focus on history of religions, as well as phenomenology, and philosophy of religion(s).

Kofi Awoonor in conversation with Hein Willemse [English] [First paragraph] Kofi Awoonor was born on 13 March 1935 in the rural town of Wheta, Ghana. He completed degrees at the Universities of Ghana and London and gained his Ph.D in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1972. Prior to furthering his studies in England he worked as a research fellow as the University of Ghana's Institute of African Studies, and later became the managing director of the Ghana Film Corporation. After the completion of his studies he became chairperson of the Comparative Literature Programme at Stony Brook. He also taught at the University of Texas at Austin, and returned to Ghana in 1975 to teach at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana's third university. Shortly after his return, he was imprisoned by the Acheampong military regime and released in 1976. From the early 1980s to the early 90s, he held a number of ambassadorial postings in Latin America and the United Nations. As Artist-in-Residence he is still attached to the English Department, University of Ghana. Tydskrif vir letterkunde Vol. 41(2) 2004: 186-197

This article is an adapted and elaborated version of the memorial lecture (sponsored by the National Afrikaans Literature Museum and Research Centre in Bloemfontein) delivered in Potchefstroom on 4 March 2005. My encounter with the famous scholar P. J. Nienaber prompted deeper reflection on literary historiography and education methodology at tertiary institutions. The core question of the essay is to which extent the traditional way of thinking about Afrikaans literature, as applied in South Africa, should be rewritten when the Afrikaans literary historical process is explained to an external, foreign target audience. I argue from my experience as the author of a history of Afrikaans literature written for an European audience. The second related issue under investigation and supplied with examples is in connection with the new field of study “South African Studies” as it is planned and being realised in Poland. Here I go deeper into the question of what the possibilities of knowledge transfer are when the object of study is an exotic reality as well as ways of familiarizing it. The idea is that the new Polish curriculum should benefit the student in two ways: to transfer a certain amount of knowledge and, by this indirect route, give new insights into the student's own familiar reality Keywords : Literary historiography, Afrikaans literary history, Afrikaans outside South Africa, South African Studies. > Tydskriff vir Letterkunde Vol. 44 (2) 2007: pp. 215-231

The sociolinguistics of the Northern African states is relatively obscure in terms of international research, since these regions do not feature significantly in the areas of Arabic studies/Orientalism, Romance studies or classical African studies. A similar problem holds for the scientific classification of studies on Berber. This article develops an africanist-sociolinguistic approach to central questions refering to multilingualism in the context of historically unfolding geo- and sociolinguistic profiles ofNorthern African nations. This will be discussed within the framework of a historical linguistic stratigraphy. The article broadens the concept of diglossia as used in the arabophonic context in order to include a multilingual dimension (polyglotism), and discusses models of conflict avoidance between native speakers of Arabic, Berber and French, respectively. The article focuses on situationally adequate language political arrangements, especially in the area of education, on the basisof L1-based additive bi- and trilingualism models.Keywords: African studies, Arabic, Berber, education, diglossia, French, Maghreb, multilingualism, polyglotism, sociolinguistics, language policySchlüsselbegriffe: Afrikanistik, Arabisch, Berber, Bildung, Diglossie, Französisch, Maghreb, Mehrsprachigkeit, Polyglossie, Soziolinguistik, Sprachenpolitik

Previously identified as an entrenched Egyptian community, Copts have propelled themselves into the greater Africa through two main phenomena: migration and mission. Copts have recast displacement to transcend powerlessness and loss by highlighting the sovereign opportunity to consolidate identity in new contexts and widen the fold of the Coptic community, expressed through ecumenism, holistic ministry, cultural sensitivity and the presentation of the Coptic Church as essentially ‘African’. In migration, the Coptic Church creates identity through physical presence (church buildings), recasting the narrative (African originality), employing a rubric of sovereignty (agency rather than passivity) and engaging others ecumenically (gaining Orthodox legitimacy). Beyond reaching out to migrants, much energy has been devoted to mission by establishing institutions, including a missionary training department at the Institute of Coptic Studies and a Department of African Studies in Cairo. In mission, the Coptic Church extends its influence beyond migrants to include non-Copts and non-Christians through ecumenism, social programs and the presentation of Copts as essentially African.

Vladimir Shubin is the Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies inthe Russian Academy of Sciences and a former officer in the Soviet armed forces,and subsequently, a member (eventually secretary) of the Soviet Afro-AsianSolidarity Committee and desk officer (eventually head) of the African Section ofthe Communist Party of the USSR. In the latter two capacities he became intenselyinvolved in supporting Southern African liberation movements on behalf of theUSSR.In The Hot “Cold War”: The USSR in Southern Africa Shubin aims to ‘set therecord straight’ with regard to Moscow’s involvement in Southern Africa during theCold War, especially the role of the Soviet military, which he believes ‘is coveredinadequately or even distorted’ (p. xv). His work is divided into five parts dealing insuccession with the liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe,Namibia and South Africa during the period 1960 to 1990.

Besides the introductory remarics this area report consists of five sections, published in two articles: ‘From Andrie du Toit to Willem Vorster’ and ‘From Willem Vorster to Andries van Aarde’. As part of the introductory remarks the titles of various articles that recently appeared on the South African scene are brought together in the first article. With respect to Du Toit, the overview focuses inter alia on an evaluation of his p re view of historical Jesus research in the light of the results of recent North American and South African studies. Vorster’s contribution is discussed according to two themes: the epistemology of ‘post-critical’ historical research and the presuppositions regarding the ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus.

Western thought has influenced the way that religion is understood. Western philosophy supported the separation between the sacred and the profane. Modernism, focusing on human rationality, reduced religion to a set of correctly formulated dogmas and doctrines. Western thought, dominated by Christianity, created a hierarchical structure of world religions through a theology of religions. Can an African understanding of religion make a contribution to the understanding of what religion is? Such a question requires an African understanding of religion, as well as an understanding of African religion. From an African perspective, religion emphasises the human effort to systematise, in society, the continuation of a religious experience relevant to a specific context. Tradition, expressed in rituals and ethics, becomes the social expression of these religious experiences. African religion tends not to differentiate the transcendental from the earthly. African scholars do not present one unified understanding of religion. Some scholars would even argue that an African understanding is nothing more than an internalised form of Western perspectives. To characterise African Traditional Religion as a separate type of religion minimises the contribution that an African understanding can make to religion.