Code 20437
Level of study Third/Final year
Credit value 20
Semester 1 and/ or 2 depending on staff availability. Available in alternate years
The module looks at West African genres ranging from "traditional" oral performance arts to "modern" innovations of the colonial period such as concert party, travelling theatre, popular fiction and popular music, in the context of 20th century cultural and political change. Topics covered in the second semester include theatre for development, protest genres and township culture in Eastern and Southern Africa, in the context of colonisation, apartheid and the liberation struggle Texts and video recordings are studied in order to gain a sense of the aesthetics of these forms and the way their messages are constructed.