CFP: Modern Africa (Africa in Motion 2012 Symposium)

From: Natalia Palombo <[email protected]>

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 Africa in Motion 2012 Symposium
African Popular Culture in the 21st Century
Call for Papers

Saturday 27 October 2012, 09:00 - 17:00
Seminar Room 1 & 2, Chrystal MacMillan Building, George Square,
University of Edinburgh.

To link with the Africa in Motion 2012 festival theme Modern Africa, we
are inviting papers from scholars working in the field of African Popular
Culture. The festival will focus on films and events that represent Africa
as part and parcel of the modern, globalised world - the urban, the new,
the provocative, the innovative and experimental. We regard “modern” not
as belonging solely to the “West”, and through the festival we want to
emphasise Africa's important role in the modern world. We are interested
in discovering and exploring through this year's festival how modernity
manifests in African cultures, and the symposium focus on African popular
culture will further enhance this theme.

Africa in Motion 2012 symposium will run alongside Africa in Motion Film
Festival 2012 (25 October - 2 November) in the city of Edinburgh, UK on
Saturday 27 October 2012, 09:00 - 17:00. Venue: Seminar Room 1 &
2,Chrystal MacMillan Building, George Square, University of Edinburgh.


Suggested themes for papers include:

- What is African popular culture?
- How could Karin Barber's pioneering work in African Cultural Studies be
updated for the 21st century?
- How could African popular culture be regarded as manifestations of
contemporary African identities?
- Questioning the myth of the “tradition-versus-modernity conflict” in
African societies
- Globalisation, hybridisation, intertextuality and interdisciplinarity in
the field of African Cultural Studies
- The digital revolution and the video-film industries in Africa: Ghanaian
video-films, Nollywood and its followers (for example Bongowood in
Tanzania, Riverwood in Kenya, Ugawood in Uganda)
- Film spectatorship, audiences and sites of consumption in African
popular film
- Popular music and youth culture in Africa: for example hip-hop, rap,
kwaito and the political dimensions of these musical genres
- New fusions of traditional music and Western influences: for example
Youssou N'Dour and Mbalax (Senegal/Gambia)
- Popular music and activism: for example Fela Kuti and the Afrobeat
revolution
- Contemporary African dance as a fusion of styles, genres and influences
- Popular dance as a tool to interpret and comment on history: for example
Angolan kuduro
- Political cartooning as satire and subversion: critiquing
neo-colonialism and subverting colonial representations
- Comics and graphic novels as a reflection of urban landscapes and
identities
- Street fashion: Alternative clothing styles and youth culture, for
example “Geek chic”, hip hop, the Congolese Sapeurs
- African wax prints: the global economy of production
- Meaningful fashion: patterns, imagery and slogans on African fabrics,
for example Swahili kangas
- Sport and development in Africa
- Football, fandom and collective identities in Africa
- Street art, graffiti and murals as popular expression and resistance
- Street art for awareness-raising, social change and urban rejuvenation
- Posters and slogans on public transport as expressions of religious and
social identities
- Yoruba travelling theatre and its influence on contemporary culture
- Street theatre and theatre for development
- Orality and performance in Africa: masquerades, rituals, trance and
possession, musical performances, comic and satiric sketches, dance
theatre
- Contemporary African art as straddling “high culture” and “pop culture”
- Recyclia and contemporary sculpture in Africa
- African photography beyond National Geographic
- Beyond the tourist curios: Popular painting such as Tinga Tinga (Tanzania)
- Suggested elitism in the literary arts in Africa


Abstracts are solicited for individual 20-minute papers on the theme of
the symposium. We are looking for submissions from scholars at all levels
(postgraduate students are most welcome) and invite contributions from as
wide a scope of research areas and disciplines as possible. Unfortunately,
AiM is unable to sponsor any flights or accommodation for visiting
scholars. You are encouraged to obtain sponsorship from your home
institution.

We invite abstracts of 250-300 words as well as brief biographical details
(no more than 100 words) to be sent to the symposium organisers at
[email protected] by Monday 30 July 2012. Please include
contact details, institutional affiliation, current appointment / stage of
study and main research interests.

Please note that general registration for attending the conference (not as
a speaker), will open later in the year.