African Popular Culture

The Ohio State University Department of African American and African Studies Spring Semester 2015 AFRICAN POPULAR CULTURE AAAS 7760 Wednesday, 12‐2:45pm Journalism Building, 0291 Instructor: Office: Email: Phone: Office Hours: Ryan Skinner Hughes 101c skinner.176@osu.edu (614) 292‐9441 TBA DESCRIPTION This course focuses on the rich variety of African popular culture as a way of elucidating the politics and poetics of urban social life in the modern African world. By referring to the “African world,” we recognize that the popular culture of urban Africa takes shape within a dynamic array of local, regional, and global communities, through which media, technology, capital, ideas, and people circulate with greater and greater frequency. The modernity of this world is evidenced by its extensive engagement with, contributions to, and contestations of the nation‐state, the global economy, and the transnational circuits of culture from the hinterlands of the Global South. The term “popular” turns our attention to the sub‐cultural, counter‐public, and frequently youth‐driven social and aesthetic trends cultivated in cities, within particular contexts of labor, politics, leisure, ritual, and consumer capitalism. The “culture” to which we refer encompasses a great variety of expressive forms, including music, dance, visual art, literature, theatre, and cinema. This culture is African to the extent that the post‐colonial and trans‐ (and increasingly post‐) national crises, struggles, accomplishments, and aspirations reveal common interests, concerns, and solutions emergent from the continent, its cities, and diasporas. By reading, listening, and looking deeply into the urban popular culture of the African world, this course will make a strong case for the significance of the popular performing and visual arts to the study of Africa in the social sciences and humanities, attesting to the vital place of such expression in the world today. OBJECTIVES This course seeks to: 1) critically interrogate conceptions of “the popular” and “popular culture” – and the idea of “Africa” that qualifies these concepts – from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (cultural studies, performance studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, dance studies, history, etc.); 2) situate our study of African popular culture within well‐established theoretical paradigms on popular culture, public culture, Ryan T. Skinner 2015 1 the carnivalesque, art worlds, and the urban production of space; 3) survey a variety of expressive cultural forms within urban African popular/public culture, including film, music, dance, literature, textiles, and visual art. REQUIREMENTS Work for this course consists of intensive reading and regular and thoughtful writing. When applicable, listening and viewing assignments may be added to supplement the readings. Each week, all students will submit a short 1‐page response paper (single spaced, 12 pt. font), which should directly address the assigned texts, and prepare a series of questions and comments to be discussed in class. These papers are due no later that midnight on Tuesday night and should be uploaded to the appropriate Carmen dropbox folder. I will also ask one or two students to present the chosen material for each session (except the first) and lead the class discussion with a 10‐15 minute introductory statement, followed by questions (prepared in your response papers), criticisms, and commentaries. Students should be prepared to present twice during the term. It goes without saying that students should be present at every class meeting, have read the assigned texts in their entirety, and be prepared to engage in thoughtful discussion on the selected topics of the day. A 10‐15‐page paper will be due at the end of the semester on a topic of the student’s choice. On Wednesday 25 February, students should submit a 250‐word abstract of their final paper, along with a substantive annotated bibliography. Short 10‐15 minute presentations of final paper projects will take place on Wednesday 22 April. The final paper is due at 11:59pm on Friday 1 May. REQUIRED TEXTS Required texts should either be purchased from an online vendor or requested from the library system. Other texts (articles, book chapters, class notes, etc.) can be accessed through the library course reserves, online databases, or the course website. 1. Abouet, Marguerite and Clément Oubrerie. 2012. Aya: Life in Yop City (Drawn and Quarterly) 2. Boateng, Boatema. 2011. The Copyright Thing Doesn’t Work Here (University of Minnesota Press) 3. Castaldi, Francesca. 2006. Choreographies of African Identities: Négritude, Dance, and the National Ballet of Senegal (University of Illinois Press) 4. Fabian, Johannes. 1998. Moments of Freedom: Anthropology and Popular Culture (The University Press of Virginia) 5. Jaji, Tsitsi Ella. 2014. Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan‐African Solidarity (Oxford University Press) 6. Larkin, Brian. 2008. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke University Press) 7. Mann, Gregory. 2015. From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Nongovernmentality (Cambridge University Press) Ryan T. Skinner 2015 2 8. Perullo, Alex. 2011. Live from Dar es Salaam: Popular Music and Tanzania’s Music Economy (Indiana University Press) 9. Piot, Charles. 2010. Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War (Duke University Press) ASSESSMENT 20% Class Presentations and Participation 30% Weekly Response Papers 20% Abstract and Bibliography 30% Term Paper GRADING SCALE A = Excellent B = Good C = Fair D = Poor F = Failing Minuses and Pluses will reflect incremental adjustments (e.g. B+ = Very Good) ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate or establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic misconduct. The term “academic misconduct” includes all forms of student academic misconduct wherever committed; illustrated by, but not limited to, cases of plagiarism and dishonest practices in connection with examinations. Instructors shall report all instances of alleged academic misconduct to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335‐5‐487). For additional information, see the Code of Student Conduct (http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/resource_csc.asp). DISABILITY SERVICES Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office of Disability Services will be appropriately accommodated, and should inform the instructor as soon as possible of their needs. The Office of Disability Services is located in 150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue; telephone: 292‐3307, TDD: 292‐0901; http://www.ods.ohio‐state.edu/ Ryan T. Skinner 2015 3 COURSE CALENDAR I. Theorizing Popular and Public Culture in Urban Africa Week One: Popular Culture in (and out of) Africa (1/14) 1. Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular” (1981) and “What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture?” (1993) 2. Johannes Fabian, “Popular Culture in Africa: Findings and Conjectures” (1978) 3. Karin Barber, “Popular Arts in Africa” (1987) 4. AbdouMaliq Simone, “Some Reflections on Making Popular Culture in Africa” (2008) 5. Nadine Dolby, “Popular Culture and Public Space in Africa: The Possibilities of Cultural Citizenship” (2006) Week Two: Popular Culture or Public Culture? (1/21) 1. Michael Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics” (2002) 2. Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge, “Why Public Culture?” (1988) 3. Mamdou Diouf, “Engaging Postcolonial Cultures: African Youth and Public Space” (2003) 4. AbdouMaliq Simone, “Straddling the Divides: Remaking Associational Life in the Informal African City” (2001) 5. Birgit Meyer, “Popular Cinema and Pentecostalite Style in Ghana’s New Public Sphere” (2004) 6. Andrew Eisenberg, “Hip Hop and Cultural Citizenship on Kenya’s Swahili Coast” (2012) Week Three: Bakhtin’s Carnival and Mbembe’s Postcolony (1/28) 1. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Introduction and Chapters 2, 3, and 5) 2. Achille Mbembe, “The Banality of Power and the Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Postcolony” (1992) 3. Achille Mbembe, “Variations on the Beautiful in Congolese Worlds of Sound” (2006) Week Four: Living, Conceiving, and Perceiving Urban Space (2/4) Readings: 1. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (1992) (part of ch1 and chapters 2 & 3) 2. Thomas Blom Hansen, “Sounds of Freedom: Music, Taxis, and Racial Imagination in Urban South Africa” (2006) 3. Caroline Melly, “Inside‐Out Houses: Urban Belonging and Imaging Futures in Dakar, Senegal” (2010) Ryan T. Skinner 2015 4 4. Federico Caprotti, “Visuality, Hybridity, and Colonialism: Imagining Ethiopia Through Colonial Aviation, 1935‐1940” (2011) Week Five: Popular Cultural Anthropology (2/11) 1. Johannes Fabian, Moments of Freedom: Anthropology and Popular Culture (1998) 2. Sarah Nuttall, “Rethinking Beauty” (2006) Week Six: Public Culture and Nongovernmentality after the Cold War (2/18) 1. Charles Piot, Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War (2010) Week Seven: Public Culture and Nongovernmentality in the Postcolony (2/25) 1. Gregory Mann, From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Nongovernmentality (2015) ABSTRACT AND ANNOTED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE II. Representing the Popular in Urban Africa Week Eight: Cinema (3/4) 1. Brian Larkin, Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (2008) Week Nine: Dance (3/11) 1. Francesca Castaldi, Choreographies of African Identities: Négritude, Dance, and the National Ballet of Senegal (2006) SPRING BREAK: 14‐22 MARCH Week Ten: Music (3/25) 1. Alex Perullo, Live from Dar es Salaam: Popular Music and Tanzania’s Music Economy (2011) Week Eleven: Textiles (4/1) 1. Boatema Boateng, The Copyright Thing Doesn’t Work Here: Adinkra and Kente Cloth and Intellectual Property in Ghana (2011) Ryan T. Skinner 2015 5 Week Twelve: Literature (4/8) 1. Tsitsi Ella Jaji, Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan‐African Solidarity (2014) Week Thirteen: Graphic Novel (4/15) 1. Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, Aya: Life in Yop City (2012) Week Fourteen: Paper Presentations (4/22)  Student Presentations of Final Paper Topics FINAL PAPERS DUE ON FRIDAY MAY 1ST Ryan T. Skinner 2015 6