Harold Scheub (August 26, 1931 – October 16, 2019) was an American Africanist, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Humanities Emeritus in the Department of African Languages and Literature (now the Department of African Cultural Studies) at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. Scheub has recorded and compiled

oral literature Oral literature, orature or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung as opposed to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used vary ...

from across southern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Early life and education

Born in

Gary, Indiana Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the ...

, Scheub was aware as a child of racial segregation in Gary. His family, of German descent, experienced harassment during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After attending a Lutheran grade school and local high school, Scheub worked in a local steel mill. He joined the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

, serving as a jet mechanic. On leaving the Air Force he was able to take advantage of the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

to fund his college education, and studied literature at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. After a master's degree there, he taught composition classes at

Valparaiso University Valparaiso University (Valpo) is a private university in Valparaiso, Indiana. It is a Lutheran university with about 3,000 students from over 50 countries on a campus of . Originally named Valparaiso Male and Female College, Valparaiso Universit ...

Teaching career

Scheub taught for two years at Masindi Senior Secondary School in

Masindi Masindi is a town in the Western Region of Uganda. It is on the road between Kampala and the Murchison Falls National Park. It is the site of the headquarters of the Masindi District. Location Masindi is approximately northwest of Kampala, Ug ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

. On his return to the United States, he taught again at Valparaiso. Becoming involved in the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, he studied Swahili at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in the summer of 1965.

Philip Curtin Philip Dearmond Curtin (May 22, 1922 – June 4, 2009) was a Professor Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University and historian on Africa and the Atlantic slave trade. His most famous work, ''The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census'' (1969) was one of the ...

invited Scheub to study for a PhD in the department of African languages and literature at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

. He worked with

Archibald Campbell Jordan Archibald Campbell Mzolisa "A.C." Jordan (30 October 1906 – 20 October 1968) was a novelist, literary historian and intellectual pioneer of African studies in South Africa. Early life He was born at the Mbokothwane Mission in the Tsolo distric ...

, who encouraged him to study

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

and do fieldwork research in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

.Oral History Interview: Harold Scheub

, 2005 He gained his PhD in 1969 with a thesis on the Ntsomi, a performing art practiced by

women. Political scientist Crawford Young offered Scheub a permanent position at Wisconsin, and he taught there for 43 years until his retirement in December 2013. Scheub did not marry and had no children. He died October 16, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin at age 88.

Works

* ''Bibliography of African oral narratives'', 1971 * ''African images'', 1972 * ''The Xhosa Ntsomi'', 1975 * ''African oral narratives, proverbs, riddles, poetry, and song'', 1977 * ''Story'', 1988 * ''The African storyteller: stories from African oral traditions'', 1990 * (with Nongenile Masithathu Zenani) ''The world and the word: tales and observations from the Xhosa oral tradition'', 1992 * ''The tongue is fire: South African storytellers and apartheid'', 1996 * ''A dictionary of African mythology: the mythmaker as storyteller'', 2000 * ''The poem in the story: music, poetry, and narrative'', 2002 * ''African tales'', 2005 * ''The uncoiling python: South African storytellers and resistance'', 2010 * ''Trickster and hero: two characters in the oral and written traditions of the world'', 2012

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheub, Harold 1931 births 2019 deaths Writers from Gary, Indiana Military personnel from Indiana American folklorists African folklore American Africanists Valparaiso University faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni American people of German descent Activists for African-American civil rights