5 pages
Mr.Q
ad_1.pdf
Modern Africa ( autocracy, colonialism, and western financial assistance) Guimba the tyrant (autocratic leaders in Africa with other resources) (Read: Film review on Guimba the Tyrant
http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/103/5/1737.short
To contextualize Guimba within the African Film industry at the time of its release:
Diawara, Manthia. "Dial Ouaga for AFRICAN Cinema."
Journal of Contemporary African Art, Fall/Winter 1995
http://nka.dukejournals.org/content/1995/3/46.full.pdf
To consider the Griot and the the role of storytelling, both traditionally and manifest in a contemporary
medium (please note we'll focus on the last 4 pages of this article):
"Risking the Griot's eye: Decolonisation and Contemporary African Cinema"
Peter Hitchcock (2000) Risking the Griot's eye: Decolonisation and Contemporary African Cinema, Social
Identities, 6:3, 263284 Read pgs 278281
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13504630050137624 ) Birds of Wasulu (people’s movements to against autocratic leaders)
Please identify 3 main threads in the article by Lucy Duran. Contextualize the article and it's contents with
other readings we've encountered during the semester.
Read: Birds of Wasulu: Freedom of Expression and Expressions of Freedom in the Popular Music of
Southern Mali
Lucy Durán
British Journal of Ethnomusicology
Vol. 4, Special Issue: Presented to Peter Cooke (1995), pp. 101134
(Link is provided on our onCourse page, just below this portal... )
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13504630050137624
The history of colonialism in Mali and other surrounding African countries ( resource)
Bamako
A.O.Scott, movie critic of the NYTimes wrote: "I have never seen a film quite like “Bamako,” Abderrahmane Sissako’s seething, complicated and disarmingly beautiful investigation of Africa’s social,
economic and human crises. The agony of Africa has been explored, and exploited, in several highprofile
recent documentaries and fictional features, from “God Grew Tired of Us,” about the “lost boys” of Sudan, to
“Blood Diamond” and “The Constant Gardener.” “Bamako” is something different: a work of cool intelligence
and profound anger, a long, dense, argument that is also a haunting visual poem."
Please view the film, and then read 2 of the reviews listed below that critique and analyze the
film for us. I'm eager to hear what you learn from Bamako.
View: Bamako. Director: A. Sissako. Starring Tiecoura Traore, Maimouna Helene Diarra Aissa
Maiga (2006)
There are 2 copies of Bamako on reserve at the library. You can also watch it on Youtube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1tjoAOfeD0
Read 2 of the following articles (your choice):
>”Out of Africa: 'Bamako,' a Fanciful Tale With a Moral Ending”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402264.html
>”Africans challenge global corruption in 'Bamako' courtroom”
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/02/16/africans_challenge_global_corruption_in_bamako_co
urtroom/?page=full
>"World Bank in the Docket, Charged With Africa’s Woes"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/movies/14bama.html?_r=0
Chinese economic assistance to Africa… new colonialism...
