The Transcription Centre began its brief but significant life in February 1962 under the direction of Dennis Duerden (1927-2006), producing and distributing radio programs for and about Africa. Duerden was a graduate of Queen’s College, Oxford and had served as principal of the Government Teachers’ College at Keffi, Nigeria and later as producer of the Hausa Service of the BBC. As an artist and educator with experience in West Africa, as well as a perceptive critic of African art he was a natural in his new post.
The Transcription Centre was created with funding provided initially by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) to foster non-totalitarian cultural values in sub-Saharan Africa in implicit opposition to Soviet-encouraged committed political attitudes among African writers and artists. Much of the CCF’s funding and goals were subsequently revealed to have come from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The stress between the CCF’s presumed wish to receive value for their investment in the Transcription Centre and Duerden’s likely belief that politically-based programming would alienate the very audience it sought permeated his activities throughout his years with the radio service.
The center’s first effort in broadcasting was
Beginning in 1964 a mimeographed periodical,
Over the dozen years of its active existence under Duerden’s management, the Transcription Centre enjoyed the services of a remarkable array of writers and scholars, including Frene Ginwala, Alex La Guma, John Nagenda, Lewis Nkosi, Donatus Nwoga, Cosmo Pieterse, Richard Rive, Andrew Salkey, and Robert Serumaga.
Moore, Gerald. “The Transcription Centre in the Sixties: Navigating in Narrow Seas,”
Price, Derrick. “Dennis Duerden,”
Whiteman, Kaye. “Remembering Dennis Duerden, 1927-2006,”
The records of the Transcription Centre comprise scripts and manuscripts, correspondence, legal documents, business records, ephemera, photographs, and clippings. The collection, which spans the years 1931 to 1986, is arranged partly in original order and partly in a devised order. The material is organized in four series: I. Initiatives, Events, and Sponsorships, 1961-75; II. Correspondence, 1961-86; III. Administrative Records, 1960-77; and IV. Other Papers, 1931-74. Languages present include English, Hausa, Swahili, German, French, and Italian.
Series I., Initiatives, Events, and Sponsorships, constitutes the largest group of records and probably contains the most complete representation of the Transcription Centre’s many activities. The series includes files on conferences, festivals, music, publications, radio programs, scholarship and research, television projects, and theater and film projects.
Particularly noteworthy is a large file of scripts and script fragments arranged topically as a broadcast and publishing resource, including material not represented elsewhere in the papers. An index to the names, titles, and subjects represented in this file is included in this finding aid.
For
Other projects supported by the Transcription Centre include the ethnological work of Gerhard Kubik, the Ijinle Theatre Company, and a film version of Wole Soyinka’s
Comprising about a quarter of the papers, Series II. Correspondence, contains significant evidence of the Transcription Center’s efforts on behalf of African art, writing, and scholarship through broadcasting, conferences, and cultural festivals. Though the correspondence spans 1961 to 1986, the period before 1970 is strongest.
Dennis Duerden’s tireless efforts to draw attention to Africa’s mind and soul at the beginning of the post-colonial era are documented in the center’s correspondence with artists (Jimo Akolo, Julian Bienart) and writers (Chinua Achebe, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Rajat Neogy, David Rubadiri), as well as academics and other scholars (Ulli Beier, Sillaty K. Dabo, Gerhard Kubik, Margaret Laurence, Ivan van Sertima). The extensive body of correspondence with Wole Soyinka is especially noteworthy.
Substantial additional correspondence with publishers, contributors, and client radio stations and networks is also found in the series. A complete index of correspondents is available in this finding aid.
Series III. Administrative Records, also represents about a quarter of the Transcription Centre records. The materials here include documents concerned with rent, insurance, utilities, legal matters, and the like, along with a substantial group of subscription records for
Fully half of the series, however, demonstrates via regular correspondence the roles of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Farfield Foundation in the creation and continued funding of the Transcription Centre and Dennis Duerden’s plans for the broadcasting service. This correspondence appears to have survived substantially complete.
Series IV. Other Papers, embraces in its box-and-a-half extent a group of Transcription Centre reports on social policy in and about Africa, materials on African art and culture, and a collection of papers concerned with non-African film projects in which Duerden involved himself at various times. This latter group is as varied in its emphases as a projected study of the English pub, the art and literature of India, British stage classics generally and Shakespeare specifically. Related promotional records in Series III. contain descriptive material and some correspondence concerned with Dennis Duerden’s work in physiological and medical cinematography in the early 1970s.
Other collections at the Ransom Center holding material related to the Transcription Centre include the records of
The Archival Sound Recordings service of the British Library holds sound recordings produced by the Transcription Centre and makes them available online to those with proper licensing. The Center for Research Libraries in the U.S. holds the collection of audio materials acquired from the Transcription Centre in the 1970s.
Purchase, 1990 (R12142)
Open for research
Bob Taylor, 2008
Peter Glenville Papers
This index lists names, titles, and subjects from the radio program transcriptions located in folder 7.5 through 9.3 ONLY. Each item within the folder bears a number assigned by the Transcription Centre, which is cited here to aid in finding particular items within the folder.