African popular and mass culture 3600-7-AFS4-APMC(Z)
The course aims at providing students with basic knowledge in African popular culture, especially with respect to African movies and theatre. Students will learn how it intersects with popular culture from other counries (such as U.S. or India) in many and how it reflects a globalized world.
It is an interdisciplinary course and therefore the course materials will draw from diverse disciplines and sources including films, podcasts, documentaries as well as scholarly texts.
The first part of classes will be devoted to the theory of popular culture and its history in selected countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The research methods used in the research of popular culture in Africa and the history of scientific reflection on this issue will be presented. In the second part of the course, the acquired knowledge will be used to analyze individual realizations of popular culture in Africa.
Type of course
Mode
Remote learning
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
has in-depth knowledge of selected problems of contemporary Africa (in the field of culture) in a comparative perspective including terminology in the field of African studies K_W02
has an extensive knowledge of selected problems of the culture of a selected region of Africa K_W03
has an orientation in the contemporary cultural life of Sub-Saharan Africa K_W06,
has extensive, in-depth knowledge of social structures and relations as well as socio-cultural behaviors of Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of professional and intercultural communication
K_W08,
is able to apply knowledge of African studies in solving problems related to
dissimilarity based on other values and cultural conditions in professional situations
K_U02,
can read, analyze and interpret selected cultural texts (films, plays, commercials) correctly placing them in the regional context K_U03,
Assessment criteria
attendance control
taking parts in discussions based on reading material
students' projects
Practical placement
none
Bibliography
Strinati Dominic. 2004. "An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture". London: Routledge.
Storey John. 2018. "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction". London: Routledge.
Newell Stephanie, Okome Onookome. 2013. "Popular Culture in Africa.The Episteme of the Everyday". London: Routledge.
Adamu, Abdalla Uba (ed.). 2007. "Transglobal media flows and African popular culture : revolution and reaction in muslim Hausa popular culture". Kano : Visually Ethnographic Production.
Barber, Karin. 1987. "Popular Artis in Africa", African Studies Reviev 30 (3): 1-78. (https://www.academia.edu/11804108/Popular_arts_in_Africa)
Haynes, Jonathan. 2007. "Video boom: Nigeria and Ghana", Postcolonial Text 3 (2), 1–10
Larkin, Brian. 1997. "Indian Films and Nigerian Lovers: Media and the Creation of Parallel Modernities", Africa 67 (3), 406-440.
Larkin, Brian. 2008. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham, NC: Duke UP.
Adamu, Abdalla Uba. 2010. The muse's journey: transcultural translators and the domestication of Hindi music inHausa popular culture. Journal of African Cultural Studies , 22 (1) pp. 41-56.
Katrin Barber. 2018. A History of African Popular Culture. Cambridge University Press.
Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Katrien Pype. 2020. “Popular culture in Francophone Central Africa”, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.428.
Penina Muhando Mlama. 1991. Culture and Development. The Popular Theatre Approach in Africa, The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
Abonesh Ashargie. 1996."Popular theatre in Ethiopia”. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 24(2-3), pp. 32-41.
Abraham I. Fernández Pichel (eds.) 2023. How Pharaohs Became Media Stars:
Ancient Egypt and Popular Culture, Archaeopress Egyptology.
Roger A. Sneed. 2021. "The Dreamer and the dream. Afrofuturism and black religious thought". The Ohio State University Press.
S. Sörgel. (2020). Contemporary African Dance Theatre, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: