Paper, airwaves, screens: from text to audience in African popular culture
University of Bristol, 12-13 July 2017
Wednesday 12 July
9.15 Registration/coffee
9.45 Introduction: Ruth Bush and Claire Ducournau
10.00 Keynote: Tsitsi Jaji – “Flights of Imagination: Rerouting Modernity through African Popular Culture” (Chair: Ranka Primorac, Lecture Theatre 2)
11.00: Coffee
11.15: Panel 1: Radio and the formation of popular public spheres (Chair: Simon Potter, Link Room 1/2)
Nanncy Adagala and Solomon Waliaula (Maasai Mara University) – The Cultural form of the Breakfast Show on Kenyan Commercial Radio: The Case of the Maina Kageni- Mwalimu King’anyi show on Classic FM.
Karen Ferreira-Meyers (University of Swaziland) and Enongene Mirabeau Sone (Walter Sisulu University) – The role of the media in the promotion of Swazi oral literature
12.15 Panel 2: Transmediation and audience in stand-up comedy (Chair: Sarah Arens, Link Room 1/2)
Théophile Kalbé Yamo (Université de Maroua) – Spectacles d’« humour » au Cameroun. Essai d’analyse de la réception d’un art entre littérature et show-business
John Uwa (Yale/University of Lagos) – (Trans)formation and Trans(mediation) of Nigerian Popular Culture: The Production and Reception of Nigerian Stand-Up Comedy
13.15 LUNCH
14.15 Panel 3: Urban spaces and popular culture in Dakar (Chair: Dónal Hassett, Link Room 1/2)
Brian Quinn (University of Colorado Boulder) – Popular theater as craft in urban Senegal
Mouhamed Abdallah Ly (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar) – Y en marre! La performativité citoyenne et politique d’une formule populaire
Louis Ndong (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar) – Scènes de lecture chez Ousmane Sembène: Entre littérature et cinéma
15.45 COFFEE
16.00 Panel 4: Sitcoms, soaps and popular pedagogy on screen (Chair: Kaya Davis, Link Room 1/2)
Delphine G Ngehndab (Independent scholar / Brunel University) – Using Soap Operas for Educational Purposes
Dragoss Ouédraogo (Université de Bordeaux) – Les séries télévisées en Afrique subsaharienne francophone: l’exemple de Burkina Faso
17.30 Wine reception, Humanities Common Room
19.00 Dinner
Thursday 13 July
10.00 Panel 5: Emerging New Media in Francophone Africa: Bandes Dessinées Numériques, Transmedia Narratives, and the Publishing Landscape (Chair: Ed King, Link Room 1/2)
Michelle Bumatay (Beloit College) – From 48CC to Numérique: New Avenues for African Bandes Dessinées and Comics?
Katelyn Knox (University of Central Arkansas) – States and Stakes of Francophone African “New Media Narratives”: Funding, Taxonomies, and the Politics of Representation
George McLeod (St. Mary’s College of Maryland) – Transmedia Project Seeks Investors for No Strings Attached Funding: A Case Study of Jacqueline Kalimunda’s documentaries “Floris” and “De l’Amour au Rwanda”
11.30 Coffee
11.45 Panel 6: Orality, writing and the borders of the artistic field (Chair: Claire Ducournau, Link Room 1/2)
Oluwole Coker (Obafemi Awolowo University) – (Under)mining Texts, Constructing Secularity in Yoruba Popular Culture
Myriam Odile Blin (Normandie université) – L’alphabet de Bruly Bouabré ou la reconversion esthétique d’un projet d’alphabétisation en langue vernaculaire
12.45 Lunch
13.45 Panel 7: Social networks and the reception of popular thought (Chair: Billy Kahora, Link Room 1/2)
Kate Haines Wallis (Bristol/Bath Spa) – Brokering Popular Memory: Reading networks of texts in Kwani? and Joe
Nathalie Carré (INALCO, Paris) – Nouveaux espaces littéraires : la circulation des proverbes sur les réseaux sociaux en Afrique de l’Est (Kenya – Tanzanie)
14.45 Coffee
15.00 – 16.00 Keynote: David Murphy – A Living Illustration of Negritude? Reflections on Literature and Performance at the First World Festival of Negro Arts (Dakar 1966) (Chair: Ruth Bush, Lecture Theatre 2)
Friday 14th July
10.30am Visit to M-Shed museum and Bristol Harbourside (optional)
This conference is made possible by funding from the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), as part of a Global Challenges Research Fund project: Popular print and reading cultures in francophone Africa.
