Description
Book SynopsisUndoubtedly one of Africa's most influential first generation of writers and filmmakers, Ousmane Sembene''s creative works of fiction as well as his films have been the subject of a considerable number of scholarly articles. The schemas of reading applied to Sembene''s oeuvre (novels, short stories and films) have, in the main, focused either on his militant posture against colonialism, his disenchantment with African leadership, or his infatuation with documenting the past in an attempt to present a balanced and nuanced view of African history. While these studies, unquestionably contribute to a better understanding of his works, they collectively ignore Sembene's relentless preoccupation with culture in his entire career as a writer and filmmaker. The collection of essays in Sembene and the Politics of Culture sets out to fill that gap as the contributors at once foreground Sembene's fixation on the centrality of culture in the articulation of the discourse of national consciousness
Table of ContentsTable of Contents Introduction: Cultural Politics in Senegal: A Quest for Relevance, by Lifongo Vetinde Part One: Culture and Development Chapter One: Sembene, Senghor and Competing Notions of Culture and Development at the 1966 Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres de Dakar, by David Murphy Chapter Two: Sembène and the Aesthetics of Senghorian Négritude, by Lifongo Vetinde Chapter Three: Representations of Islam and the question of Identity in Ousmane Sembene’s Ceddo, by Cherif Correa Part Two: Discourses Chapter Four: A Twice-Told Tale: The Post-colonial Allegory of La Noire de …(1966) and Faat Kine (2000), by Dayna Oscherwitz Chapter Five: Bringing the Rain Indoors: Rereading the National Allegory in Ousmane Sembene’s Xala, by Mathew H. Brown Chapter Six: Women in Sembène’s Films: Spatial Reconfigurations and Cultural Meanings, by Moussa Sow Chapter Seven: Why Does Diouana Die? Facing History, Migration and Trauma in Black Girl, by Lyell Davis Part Three: Language and Aesthetics Chapter Eight: Language, Racial Difference and Dialogic Consciousness: Sembene's God’s Bits of Wood, by Augustine Uka Nwanyanwu Chapter Nine: An Onomastic Reading of Ousmane Sembene’s Faat Kine, by Mouhamedoul A Niang Chapter Ten: Trans-formal Aesthetics and Cultural Impact on Ousmane Sembene’s Xala, by Rachel Diang’a Part Four: Testimonies Makhète Diallo Pathé Diagne Fatoumata Kandé Senghor
