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Bringing together often unconnected modes of analysis, research and debate on leisure in African studies, an interdisciplinary team of scholars reflects on the complex conceptions, creation and consumption of leisure in African cities from the nineteenth century to the present, drawing intriguing comparisons with leisure studies in Western Europe and North America. Covering leisure activities from football to music and dance to films and television in cities from Cairo to Cape Town, this book opens a new chapter in African cultural studies.
In the last decade, a certain discomfort, at times even impatience emerged among critics of African cinema. The onset of such uneasiness can be traced back to the demise of the liberationist discourse, to the questioning of the monolithic expression African cinema, and finally to the critical exploration of various forms of visual narratives developing at a fast speed on the continent. Nationalist African Cinema: Legacy and Transformations reexamines African cinema of the nationalist era within the context of contemporary major Euro-American film trends. It argues that the aesthetic diversification of African cinema can be traced as far back as the nationalist era."
Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers is groundbreaking edited collection which explores the contributions of Francophone African women to the field of documentary filmmaking. Rich in its scope and critical vision it constitutes a timely contribution to cutting-edge scholarly debates on African cinemas. Featuring 10 chapters from prominent film scholars, it explores the distinctive documentary work and contributions of Francophone African women filmmakers since the 1960s. It focuses documentaries by North African and Sub-Saharan women filmmakers, including the pioneering work of Safi Faye in Kaddu Beykat, Rama Thiaw's The Revolution Will Not be Televised, Katy Lena Ndiaye's Le Cercle des noyes and En attendant les hommes, Dalila Ennadre's Fama: Heroism Without Glory and Leila Kitani's Nos lieux interdits. Shunned from costly fictional- 35mm-filmmaking, Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers examines how these women engaged and experimented with documentary filmmaking in personal, evocative ways that countered the officially sanctioned, nationalist practice of show and teach/promote.
African Documentary Cinema investigates the inception and trajectory of contemporary documentary filmmaking in sub-Saharan African countries and their diasporas. The book challenges critical paradigms that have long prevailed in African film criticism, shedding light on the diverse discourses and evolving aesthetic trends present within documentary films. Situating his analysis within the context of the significant transformation of the African film industry, the author focuses on the development, diversity, and shifting dynamics that have impacted contemporary documentary cinema. Examining the historical, political, sociological, economic, and cultural factors that have facilitated the rise...
Sembene is one of the major figures of African literature, and also one of Africa's foremost film directors. This is the first study to give an overview of his work in fiction and on screen. This book examines Sembene Ousmane's radical reinterpretation of African history and culture, focusing on representations of the African city, animism, the role of women, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The author argues that Sembene 'imagines alternatives' to the dominant narratives of both Africa in general, and Senegal in particular. North America: Africa World Press
Contributions by Nathaniel Brennan, Luca Caminati, Silvia Carlorosi, Caroline Eades, Saverio Giovacchini, Paula Halperin, Neepa Majumdar, Mariano Mestman, Hamid Naficy, Sada Niang, Masha Salazkina, Sarah Sarzynski, Robert Sklar, and Vito Zagarrio Intellectual, cultural, and film historians have long considered neorealism the founding block of post-World War II Italian cinema. Neorealism, the traditional story goes, was an Italian film style born in the second postwar period and aimed at recovering the reality of Italy after the sugarcoated moving images of fascism. Lasting from 1945 to the early 1950s, neorealism produced world-renowned masterpieces such as Roberto Rossellini's Roma, città ...
Eschewing the postcolonial hubris that suggests Africa could only define itself in relation to its colonizers, a problem plaguing many studies published in the West on African cinema, this entry in the Directory of World Cinema series instead looks at African film as representing Africa for its own sake, values, and artistic choices. With a film industry divided by linguistic heritage, African directors do not have the luxury of producing comedies, thrillers, horror films, or even love stories, except perhaps as DVDs that do not travel far outside their country of production. Instead, African directors tend to cover serious sociopolitical ground, even under the cover of comedy, in the hopes of finding funds outside Africa. Contributors to this volume draw on filmic representations of the continent to consider the economic role of women, rural exodus, economic migration, refugees and diasporas, culture, religion and magic as well as representations of children, music, languages and symbols. A survey of national cinemas in one volume, Directory of World Cinema: Africa is a necessary addition to the bookshelf of any cinephile and world traveller.
Challenging established views and assumptions about traditions and practices of filmmaking in the African diaspora, this three-volume set offers readers a researched critique on black film. Volume Three of this landmark series on African cinema spans the past century and is devoted to the documentation of decoloniality in cultural policy in both Africa and the Black diaspora worldwide. A compendium of formal resolutions, declarations, manifestos, and programmatic statements, it chronologically maps the long history and trajectories of cultural policy in Africa and the Black Atlantic. Beginning with the 1920 declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, which anticipates cinema as we know it today, and the formal oppositional assertions--aspirational and practical. The first part of this work references formal statements that pertain directly to cultural policy and cinematic formations in Africa, while the next part addresses the Black diaspora. Each entry is chronologically ordered to account for when the statement was created, followed by where and in what context it was enunciated.
Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635--1848 Bernard Moitt Examines the reaction of black women to slavery. In Women and Slavery in the French Antilles, 1635--1848, Bernard Moitt argues that gender had a profound effect on the slave plantation system in the French Antilles. He details and analyzes the social condition of enslaved black women in the plantation societies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and French Guiana from 1635 to the abolition of slavery in the French colonial empire in 1848. Moitt examines the lives of black women in bondage, evaluates the impact that the slave experience had on them, and assesses the ways in which women reacted to and coped ...
Poverty is South Africa's greatest challenge. But what is 'poverty'? How can it be measured? And how can it be reduced if not eliminated? In South Africa, human science knowledge about the cost of living grew out of colonialism, industrialization, apartheid and civil resistance campaigns, which makes this knowledge far from neutral or apolitical. South Africans have used the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), Gini coefficients and other poverty thresholds to petition the state, to chip away at the pillars of white supremacy, and, more recently, to criticize the postapartheid government's failures to deliver on some of its promises. Rather than promoting one particular policy solution, this book argues that poverty knowledge teaches us about the dynamics of historical change, the power of racism in white settler societies, and the role of grassroots protest movements in shaping state policies and scientific categories. Readers will gain new perspectives on today's debates about social welfare, redistribution and human rights, and will ultimately find reasons to rethink conventional approaches to advocacy.