This book shows new approaches to the African continent and its various cultures, explores different facets of African cultures as they exist or undergo changes, and illustrates how and where African and European cultures come or have come into contact, interact, and create something new. The contributors are social, cultural and literary scientists, linguists, and artists of various cultural backgrounds who investigate topics on an African country and who use novel and often interdisciplinary methods. Their joint interest is a better understanding of the multifaceted character of the African continent, which is still often depicted as a cultural monolith, by exploring contemporary African literature, theatre, film, music and the use of linguistic methods as well as the experience of Africans in diasporas.

This volume continues the tradition in the series Hallenser Studien zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik of representing the full thematic diversity of research in English and American studies. The articles - mainly written by young researchers in their postgraduate or postdoctoral phases - span the areas of English and American literature, culture studies and linguistics as well as the teaching of English as a foreign language (Fachdidaktik). At the same time they represent various theoretical approaches adopted by young German researchers and the interplay of theoretical and applied issues.