Description:

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Breadlosers: Nollywood, State Television, and the Stakes of Masculine Melodrama

Matthew Brown, African cultural studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Presentation Description:

The earliest Nollywood films drew from a pool of expertise within Nigeria’s massive state television network, and some films directly responded to state television narratives. In the 1990s, films focused on the subject of marriage were particularly influenced by the latest Nigerian soap operas, which explored new scripts for gender performance, often influenced by the rise of international NGOs devoted to women’s issues. Some Nollywood films extended the feminine melodramatic mode cultivated on state television, but others retaliated, developing a masculine melodramatic mode that would become typical of the industry. In this presentation, I propose that, by attending to narrative form and audiovisual aesthetics, we can better understand films that, on the surface, appear to be about the evils of greed. Instead, they make more sense as reactions to the economic foundations of gender relations. The subject of breadwinning, in particular, and the sometimes-nefarious means by which men pursue it, exposes Nollywood’s greater concern with the sharp contrast between people’s social fantasies and the conditions within which they actually live.

Bio:

Matthew H. Brown is Assistant Professor of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a media historian, with a focus on Nigeria, including colonial cinema, state television, and video film—otherwise known as “Nollywood.” His current book project, tentatively titled Indirect Subjects: Nollywood’s Local Address, teases apart the relationship between Nigeria’s state television network, which is the oldest and largest in Africa, and the Nollywood video boom that grew out of state television in the 1990s. Dr. Brown has also published articles and book chapters on genre theory, literature, and popular music in Africa.

Description:

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The Road to the Two Sudans and The Untold Story of Shari`a in Sudan

Richard Lobban, professor emeritus of anthropology and African studies, Rhode Island College, and Carolyn Fleuhr-Lobban, professor emerita of anthropology, Rhode Island College

Description:

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The 1591 Moroccan Invasion of Songhay

Lansiné Kaba, history, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar

Bio:

Dr. Lansiné Kaba is Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University at Qatar. He headed the Department of African American Studies from 1986 to 1995, and served as Dean of the Honors College from 1996 to 2001. He was President of the US /International/ African Studies Association from 1998 to 2001. He has received many awards and has lectured in many countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East on both academic and current issues. His radio interviews and television appearances have made him a “public intellectual” in French-speaking Africa.

Description:

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Formal and Non-formal Land Rights in Africa: The Ethiopian Case Study

Solomon Fikre Lemma, law, Addis Ababa University; PAS visiting scholar

Bio:

Solomon Fikre Lemma, PAS visiting scholar, has served as Dean of the College of Law and Governance Studies and Secretary of the Senate of Addis Ababa University, as well as an assistant professor at the Schools of Law of Addis Ababa and Hawassa Universities. He received his PhD, LL.M., and LL.B. degrees from the Schools of Law of the University of Warwick, Erasmus University, and Addis Ababa University, respectively. Lemma's research interests include law and development, particularly the role and potential of land, business, and property laws in tackling poverty and fostering economic development in developing countries. He has served as a UNHCR volunteer at Bonga and Fugnido Camps for Sudanese refugees in western Ethiopia, contributing to his research interest in the protection and treatment accorded to vulnerable groups such as women, children, and refugees under international and Ethiopian laws.

Description:

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Cosponsored by the Nollywood Working Group.

Wither Nollywood? The Future of Popular Media in Africa

John McCall, anthropology, Southern Illinois University

Talk abstract:

The independent video movie industry in Nigeria popularly dubbed “Nollywood” developed an innovative form of media production, distribution and screening that transformed the mediascape in Africa and attracted the attention of researchers. Recently however, the appeal of the high-quality, formally financed “New Nollywood” films has drawn scholars’ attention away from the continuing spread of more informal regional video movie production across Africa. The evident quality and significance of New Nollywood movies, and their cosmopolitan character fits them easily into the frame of academic film criticism. The local informal productions however, remain the foremost form of popular media in Africa. This paper attempts draw scholarly attention back to the less metropolitan more regional expressions of video movie production in Africa.

Bio:

My research is focused on African arts, music, and dance. I am particularly interested in the performance arts as mechanisms of collective memory, historiography, and the production of meaning in community life.

Since 2000, I have devoted my attention to Africa's enthusiastic and innovative embrace of digital media, which have made it possible for people of modest means to produce and distribute movies without foreign funding or dependence on the infrastructures of transnational media corporations. Most of this research focuses on the Nigerian video movie industry that has become popularly known as: "Nollywood."