ARHT405

What are the images of Africa as portrayed in films? How has cinema been a site of the struggle for representation, both aesthetic and political, for Africans? This course will examine film, video, and installation art about Africa and from Africa, from classic Hollywood stereotypes of primitives and witchdoctors to contemporary postcolonial critiques of civil society and the injustices of Western hegemony. We will study topical issues including cinema as oral history, ethnographic film, anti-colonial and auteur cinemas, and feminist responses to African modernity, neo-traditionalism, and Islam. This course will coincide with the spring Africana Film Festival, making the most of special showings and invited speakers.