Description
Book SynopsisFor postcolonial Africa, modernization was seen as a necessary outcome of the struggle for independence and as crucial to the success of its newly established states. This book includes 15 essays that address governance, production, and social life; and the role of media.
Trade ReviewThis is a varied collection of fifteen sole-authored chapters on modernization as spectacle, an area that has attracted little research to date . . . [A] good read.Feb. 2016
* Africa *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Modernization as Spectacle in Africa
Stephan F. Miescher, Peter J. Bloom, and Takyiwaa Manuh
Part I. Modernization and the Origins of the Package
1. After Modernization: Globalization and the African Dilemma
Percy C. Hintzen
2. Modernization Theory and the Figure of Blindness: Filial Reflections
Andrew Apter
Part II. Media, Modernity, and Modernization
3. Film as Instrument of Modernization and Social Change in Africa: The Long View
Rosaleen Smyth
4. Mass Education, Cooperation, and the "African Mind"
Aaron Windel
5. Is Propaganda Modernity? Press and Radio for "Africans" in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi during World War II and its Aftermath
Mhoze Chikowero
6. Elocution, Englishness, and Empire: Film and Radio in Late Colonial Ghana
Peter J. Bloom
Part III. Infrastructure and Effects
7. Negotiating Modernization: The Kariba Dam Project in the Central African Federation, c. 1954-1960
Julia Tischler
8. "No One Should Be Worse Off": The Akosombo Dam, Modernization, and the Experience of Resettlement in Ghana
Stephan F. Miescher
9. Radioactive Excess: Modernization as Spectacle and Betrayal in Postcolonial Gabon
Gabrielle Hecht
Part IV. Institutional Training in Nkrumah's Ghana
10. Modeling Modernity: The Brief Story of Kwame Nkrumah, a Nazi Pilot Named Hanna, and the Wonders of Motorless Flight
Jean Allman
11. The African Personality Dances Highlife: Popular Music, Urban Youth, and Cultural Modernization in Nkrumah's Ghana, 1957-1965
Nate Plageman
12. Building Institutions for the New Africa: The Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana
Takyiwaa Manuh
Part V. Modernization and the Literary Imagination
13. Theatre and the Politics of Display: The Tragedy of King Christophe at Senegal's First World Festival of Negro Arts
Christina S. McMahon
14. Re-Engaging Narratives of Modernization in Contemporary African Literature
Nana Wilson-Tagoe
15. Between Nationalism and Pan-Africanism: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Theater and the Art and Politics of Modernizing African Culture
Aida Mbowa
Contributors
Index
