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Proposed Undergraduate Syllabus LINDSEY B. GREEN-SIMMS

African Cinema in a Global Context

This course provides students with an introduction to sub-Saharan African filmmaking practices and to the political and social issues that have become central to African film. Although films were shot in Africa in the early half of the 20th century, African filmmaking per se refers to the films that have been made by Africans since the 1960s, when the majority of the countries in Africa gained independence from colonial powers. This class will focus on both the form and the content of these films by examining the way that African filmmakers project local, national, and regional issues onto global screens. I have organized our study into four related sections: 1) colonialism and the necessity for African self-representation; 2) gender and sexuality politics; 3) globalization and human rights; and 4) popular video formats. In each of these units we will examine the extent to which African films provide representations of African culture that reject disparaging Western portrayals; the way that the films negotiate the clashes between African and Western values; the way that the films intervene in issues of human rights, war, and social politics; and the aesthetic forms and genres chosen by the filmmakers (i.e. social realism, avant-gardism, magical realism, melodrama). By the end of the semester students will be familiar with the major directors of African cinema (such as Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambety, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, and Abderrahmane Sissako) and will understand the local and global issues that affect the style and circulation of African filmmaking.

Course Format:

Each week we will focus on a film and a selection of readings that provide students with critical context regarding the larger debates in which the film may be situated. Students will be asked to prepare a one-page response to each film that addresses some of the issues raised in the readings. Students will also be asked to orally present two shot-by-shot analyses and to write three critical essays throughout the semester. The class is discussion based and will require students’ lively participation.

Reading Schedule: Colonialism and Self-Representation Week 1. Screening: J. Lee Thompson’s King Solomon’s Mines; excerpts of The Gods Must Be Crazy

Reading: Anne McClintock, “The Lay of the Land: Genealogies of Imperialism” Robert Stam and Ella Shohat, “The Imperial Imaginary” Jan Nederveen Pieterse, “Savages, Animals, Heathens, Races” in White on

Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. Week 2. Screening: Jean Rouch’s Jaguar

Reading: Jean Rouch, “The Situation and the Tendency of the Cinema in Africa” Jean Rouch and Ousmane Sembène, “A Historic Confrontation in 1965

between Jean Rouch and Ousmane Sembène: ‘You Look at Us as If We Were Insects’”

Frank Ukadike, “Africa and the Cinema” in Black African Cinema

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Week 3. Screening: Ousmane Sembène’s Borom Sarret and La Noire De . . . Reading: Stephen Zacks, “The Theoretical Constructions of African Cinema” Manthia Diawara, African Cinema (Selections)

Francoise Pfaff, “Sembène, A Griot of Modern Times” Gender and Sexuality Week 4. Screening: Ousmane Sembène’s Xala

Reading: Laura Mulvey, “Ousmane Sembène (1974): The Carapace that Failed” Teshome Gabriel, “Xala: A Cinema of Wax and Gold” Week 5. Screening: Djibril Diop Mambety’s Touki Bouki Reading: Frank Ukadike, “The Hyena’s last laugh: a conversation with Djibril Diop

Mambety” Manthia Diawara, “Touki Bouki”

Week 6. Screening: Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Quartier Mozart

Reading: Jonathan Haynes, “African Filmmaking and the Postcolonial Predicament: Quartier Mozart and Aristotle’s Plot”

Brigid Sackey, “The Vanishing Sexual Organ Phenomenon” Achille Mbembe and Janet Roitman, “Figures of the Subject in Times of

Crisis” Week 7. Screening: Joseph Gai Ramaka’s Karmen Gei Reading: Frieda Ekotto, “The Erotic Tale of Karmen Gei” Lindiwe Dovey, “African Incar(me)nation: Joseph Gai Ramaka’s Karmen

Gei” from African Film and Literature Globalization and Human Rights Week 8. Screening: Cheikh Oumar Sissoko’s Finzan

Reading: Josef Gugler, “Finzan, 1990”, in African Film: Re-Imagining a Continent Roy Armes, “Individual Struggle”, African Filmmaking

Week 9. Screening: Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako Reading: Ezra Winton, “Bamako Film Puts the World Bank on Trial and Wins”

Tejumola Olaniyan, “Of Rations and Rationalities: The World Bank, African Hunger, and Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako”

Jacqueline Maingard, “Screening Africa in Colour: Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako”

Week 10. Screening: Newton Aduaka’s Ezra; excerpts from Blood Diamond

Reading: Cheryl Sterling, “Visions of War, Testaments of Peace: The ‘Burden’ of Sierra Leone”

Becky Korman – “African Cinema: A Comparative Look at Blood Diamond and Ezra”

Greg Campbell – “From Pits of Despair to Altars of Love”

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Week 11. Screening: Raoul Peck’s Lumumba

David Moore, “Raoul Peck’s Lumumba: History or Hagiography?” Laura Marks, “Memory of Images”

Week 12. Screening: Neill Blomkamp’s District 9

Reading: Carina Ray, “Humanizing Aliens or Alienating Africans?: District 9 and the Politics of Representation”

Ato Quayson, “Unthinkable Nigeriana: The Social Imaginary of District 9”

Oghenetoja Okoh, “A ‘Real’ Sci-Fi Flick in Africa?” Popular Culture: Video Films/Music Videos Week 13. Screening: Kenneth Nnebue’s Living in Bondage

Reading: Jonathan Haynes, “Introduction” to Nigerian Video Films Jonathan Haynes and Onookome Okome, “Evolving Popular

Media: Nigerian Video Films” Onookome Okome, “Introducing the Special Issue on West

African Cinema: Africa at the Movies” Lindsey Green-Simms, “The Return of Mercedes: From Ousmane

Sembène to Kenneth Nnebue” Week 14. Screening: Andy Amenchi’s The Master

Reading: Brian Larkin, selections from Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture

Week 15. Screening: Jesse Weaver Shipley’s Living the Hiplife

Reading: Jesse Weaver Shipley, “Aesthetic of the Entrepreneur: Afro-Cosmopolitan Rap and Moral Circulation in Accra, Ghana”

Course Evaluation: Participation 15% Shot-by-shot analyses 10% Essay # 1 20% Essay # 2 20% Essay # 3 20% Weekly response papers 15% Participation It is expected that students will come to class prepared to contribute to class discussion and having completed the assigned readings. Class participation grades will be determined by the quality (not quantity) of students’ contributions to discussion. The participation grade will be a factor of the following three elements: level of engagement during class discussions; demonstrated effort throughout the semester; and improvement and progress throughout the

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semester. For students who are less comfortable with speaking in large groups, I encourage you to email me with questions and comments about the readings and to attend office hours. Shot-by-shot analyses Each student will be asked to present two shot-by-shot analyses to the class. Students will be able to select a sequence of their choice (1-3 minutes) and present a detailed analysis of the types of shots, framing, lighting, angles, etc. the director is using. The student should be able to name the cinematic techniques and to discuss what significance they have to the film as a whole. Essays There will be a total of three 4-5 page critical essays required. Essay topics will be handed out in class for the first two papers. Students are required to generate their own topic in conjunction with the instructor for the final paper. Weekly Response Papers Each week students will be asked to write a brief one-page response to the film. Rather than describing whether you find the film appealing, I would like you to comment on some of the issues raised in the reading and to connect the film to the larger debates we are having in the course.