USA Africa Dialogue Series - CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL THEORY CONCERNING CULTURAL PRODUCTION OF AFRICAN LITERATURE AND CINEMA:

CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL THEORY CONCERNING CULTURAL PRODUCTION OF AFRICAN LITERATURE AND CINEMA: COMPARISONS ACROSS BORDERS
Sponsored jointly by:
 Michigan State University and University of Michigan
October 29, 2010 – MSU
October 30, 2010 – U of M
Organized by Ken Harrow, MSU and Frieda Ekotto, U of M

 

Friday, Oct. 29, 2010
Michigan State University
Third Floor, International Center

  PANEL I
 Moderator:  Anna Norris, Michigan State University
 -   Safoi Babana-Hampton, Michigan State University,
"The Promises and Pitfalls of Critical Approaches to Film Productions in the Maghreb"
-   Valerie Orlando, University of Maryland, "Screening Morocco: Filming the Social, Cultural and Political Challenges of a Country in Transition"
-   Salah Hassan, Michigan State University, "Figurations of Islam in Graceland"
-   Lamia Ben Youssef, University of Alabama-Birmingham, "Writing from the Ghetto: New Trends in North African Exilic Literature"
11:15 – 12:30 p.m.

Keynote Speaker (1) Moradewun Adejunmobi
"Provocations: African Societies and Theories of Creativity"
Respondant: Maureen Eke, Central Michigan University
 1:30 – 3:30 p.m.

\PANEL II
 Moderator: Laura Fair, Michigan State University
 -   Charles Sugnet, University of Minnesota, "Plus ca change. . . But What Continent Do the Critics Live On?"
-   Eileen Julien, Indiana University, "Issues of Language and Vision in the Work of Boris Boubacar Diop and Joseph Ramaka"
-   Olabode Ibironke, Johns Hopkins University, "World Market and the Invention of Global Literature"
-   Pius Adesamni, Carleton College, "When is an African Literature Classroom?: Perspectives from Canada"
Respondent:  Odile Cazenave, Boston University
3:34-5:00

Keynote Speaker (2)Patrice Nganang
"In Praise of the Alphabet"
Respondent: Akin Adesokan, Indiana University
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010
University of Michigan
Wolverine ABC (Michigan Union)

PANEL I
 Moderator:  Mandy Davis, University of Michigan
 -   Mária Minich Brewer, University of Minnesota, "Theorizing New African Dramaturgies in France"
-   Adeline Koh, Richard Stockton College, "Reexamining Transnational Feminism in the 1960s: Gendered Connections in Malaysia's Joss and Gold and Zimbabwe's Nervous Conditions"
-   Lindsey Green-Simms, The College of Charleston, "Occult Melodramas: Spectral Affect and West African Video-Film"
-   Caitlin Scholl, Berkley University, "Delineating Bodies, Silencing Voices: Nationalism, Gender, and the Sunjata Epic"
11:15 – 1:00 p.m.

Keynote Speaker (1)Leonora Miano, Novelist
"Perception occidentale des Lettres subsahariennes"
Translator: Patrick Tonks, University of Michigan
Respondent: Nathalie Etoke, Connecticut College
 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.

PANEL II
Moderator:  Marie Stoll, University of Michigan
-   Magali Compan-Banard, Mary and William College, "Breaking Silence from the Indian Ocean: Shenaz Patel's Mauritius Geography of Production"
-   Soraya Tlatli, Berkley University, "Assia Djebar: la voix des morts"
-   Charles Gueboguo, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, "Comparing Queer Nations in Africa"
-   Ingrid Lynch, University of Michigan (University of Pretoria, South Africa), "Languages and Sexualities: The Relevance of "bi" in South African Discourses of Fluid Female Desire"
 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.

Keynote Speaker (2) Tejumola Olaniyan, University of Wisconsin
"African Cultural Studies: Of Travels, Accents, and Epistemologies"
Respondent:  Derek Peterson, University of Michigan

 5:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Concluding remarks:
-   Freida Ekotto, University of Michigan
-   Ken Harrow, Michigan State University