A Collection African Studies Bibliographies and Archival Materials

Calligraphy, Writing, and Sign Systems

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• Abbott, Nabia. "Maghribi Koran Manuscripts of the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Centuries." The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 55, no. 1 (Jan. 1938): pp. 61-65.
• Becker, Cynthia and Alex Zito. “Yelimane Fall: Senegalese Calligraphy in Action.” African Arts 47, no 2 (Summer 2014): 28-39.
• Bivar, A. D. H. "The Arabic Calligraphy of West Africa." African Language Review 7 (1968): pp. 3-15.
• Bivar, A. D. H. "Arabic Documents of Northern Nigeria." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 22, no. 1-3 (1959): pp. 324-349.
• Bivar, A. D. H. "The Wathiqat Ahl Al-Sudan: A Manifesto of the Fulani Jihad." The Journal of African History 2, no. 2 (1961): pp. 235-243.
• Bivar, A. D. H. and M. Hiskett. "The Arabic Literature of Nigeria to 1804: A Provisional Account." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 25, no. 1-3 (1962): pp. 104-148.
• Brigaglia, Andrea and Mauro Nobili, eds. The Arts and Crafts of Literacy: Islamic Manuscript Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa. Studies in Manuscript Cultures 12. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2017. [Reviewed by Paul E. Lovejoy in Research Africa Reviews 2, no. 3 (December 2018): pp. 40-42.]
• Cartry, M. "Note sur les signes graphiques du géomancien gourmantchè." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 33, no. 2 (1963): pp. 275-306.
• Dalby, David. "An Inspired Invention." UNESCO Courier (April 1995): pp. 22-23.
• Deroche, François. "O. Houdas et les écritures maghrebines," in Le manuscrit arabe et la codicologie edited by Ahmed-Chouqui Binebine, pp. 75-81. Rabat: Faculté des lettres, et des sciences humaines, 1994.
• Dike, P. Chike. "Art, Symbol, and Authority Among the Aro of South East Nigeria." Jahrbuch des Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig (Münster-Hamburg) 39 (1992): pp. 192-200.
• Fournet, Jean-Luc. "Parfums et magie dans un papyrus copte inédit de Strasbourg (P.Strasb. K. 19)," in Etudes coptes X Douzième journée d'études (Lyon, 19021 mai 2005) edited by Anne Boud'hors and Catherine Louis, pp. 157-166. Cahiers de la bibliothèque copte 16. Paris: De Boccard, 2008.
• Gaudio, Attilio. "Notes sur le Sahara Espagnol." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 22 (1952): pp. 17-25.
• Ganay, Solange de. "Graphies bambara des nombres." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 20, no. 2 (1950): pp. 295-305.
• Glidden, Harold W. "Fatimid Carved-Wood Inscriptions in the Collections of the University of Michigan." Ars Islamica 6, no. 1 (1939): pp. 94-95.
• Griaule, Marcel. "Blasons totémiques des Dogon." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 7, no. 1 (1937): pp. 69-78.
• Hagenbucher Sacripanti, Frank. "Eléments de magie et de sorcellerie chez les Arabes d'Afrique Centrale." Cahiers ORSTOM, série Sciences Humaines 14, no. 3 (1977): pp. 251-288.
• Hassan, Salah M. Art and Islamic Literacy Among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria. African Studies 27. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.
• Homburger, L. "Les inscriptions méroïtiques." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 33, no. 2 (1963): p. 311.
• Jespers, Philippe. "Signes graphiques minyanka." Journal des africanistes 49, no. 1 (1979): pp. 71-102.
• Kreamer, Christine Mullen, ed. Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2007.
• Le Quellec, Jean-Loïc. "Rock Art, Scripts and Proto-Scripts in Africa: The Lybico-Berber Example," in Written Culture in a Colonial Context: Africa and the Americas 1500-1900 edited by Adrien Delmas and Nigel Penn, pp. 3-29. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
• Lesourd, Michel. "Dessins géométriques composés par les élèves des écoles coraniques d'In Çalah." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 6, no. 2 (1936): pp. 213-216.
• Malcolm-Woods, Rachel. Igbo Talking Signs in Antebellum Virginia: Religion, Ancestors and the Aesthetics of Freedom. Ph.D., U. of Missouri-Kansas City, 2005.
• Martinez Ruiz, Felix Barbaro. Kongo Machinery: Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign. Ph.D., Yale U., 2004.
• Matateyou, Emmanuel. L’écriture du roi Njoya: une contribution de l’Afrique à la culture de la modernité. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2015.
• Metraux, Alfred. "The King of the Bamouns and His Alphabet." UNESCO Courier 3, no. 10 (Nov. 1950): p. 4.
• Monod, Théodore. "Sur les inscriptions arabes peintes de Ti-m-Missao (Sahara central)." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 8, no. 1 (1938): pp. 83-96.
• Nagy, Peter T. and Umberto Bongianino. "Barakat Muhammad: Notes on Square Kufic Epigraphy in the History of Morocco," in Inscriptions of the Medieval Islamic World, edited by Bernard O'Kane, A. C. S. Peacock, and Mark Muehlhaeusler, pp. 146–172. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
• Nelson, Ronald and Abdu-Iisa. Ekkitinol Ajamiya: Fulfulde windaande bee karfeeje Arabiya. Yaoundé: SIL, 2007.
• Onyeneho, Golda and Sylvester Ngozi Onyeneho. Nsibidi and Uli: History and Transformations. Unpublished audio recording, Burnsville, MN, 28 March 2009.
• Page, Melvin E. and Patrick R. Bennett. "The Inscribed Sandals of Tippu Tip." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 42, no. 2 (1972): pp. 187-191.
• Sargent, Cara Lia. The Napatan Royal Inscriptions: Egyptian in Nubia. Ph.D., Yale U., 2004.
• Seydou, C. "Note sur le «mot-date» (Procédé mnémotechnique et littéraire utilisé par les écrivains peul et haoussa)." Journal de la Société des Africanistes 38, no. 1 (1968): pp. 15-18.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy. Africa as the Cradle of Writing: The Lost Script of the Bagam. Boston: Boston University, 1998.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy. "African script and scripture : the history of the Kikakui (Mende) writing system for Bible translation." African Languages and Cultures 8, no. 2 (1995): pp. 169-188.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy. The Art and Science of Writing in Africa: the Lost Script of the Bagam. Discussion Papers in the African Humanities 27. Boston, MA: African Studies Center, Boston University, 1998.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy. The 'Kikakui' (Mende) Syllabary and Number Writing System: Descriptive, Historical and Ethnographic Accounts of a West African Tradition of Writing. Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1996.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy and P.E.H. Hair. "Cherokee and West Africa: Examining the Origins of the Vai Script." History in Africa 29 (2002): pp. 427-486.
• Tuchscherer, Konrad Timothy. "The Lost Script of the Bagam." African Affairs 98, no. 390 (Jan. 1999): pp. 55-77.
• Werner, Louis. "Mauritania's Manuscripts." Saudi Aramco World 54, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 2003): pp. 2-16.