African Cultural Studies 303: Lusophone Film & Contemporary Art

In this class we study movies and art from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe. We will read current art and film criticism, historical material, and we will watch recent movies, listen to music and look at contemporary art by Kiluanji Kia Henda, Rene Tavares, Monica de Miranda and others. All of these countries fought liberation wars to win their independence from Portugal fifty years ago. That is relatively recently. What movies and art are artists in these places producing today? How does that work help us understand the past and the present? What sort of cultural scenes do they have? what is nightlife like? And what is their relationship to the different languages spoken in their countries, from Shangaan, to Kriolu, to Umbundu?

Course learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will have a working knowledge of several works of contemporary lusophone African literature in translation.

• To read texts carefully and situate each one in its own historical and cultural context.
• To read closely and critically, identify elements of a text with increasing complexity, and be able to formulate meaningful questions about a text.
• To discuss ideas in an atmosphere of openness and mutual respect.
• To develop questions and analysis from your responses to the text.
• To analyze, in depth and concisely, excerpts of a text in English (translation) in both verbal presentation (discussion, oral presentation), and written form (essays).
• To assess texts with increasing complexity and self-reliance.
• To be open to having your assumptions called into question, and your thinking challenged.
• To learn to question, probe, and compare the texts we read.

This class meets once a week for two and half hours so that we can screen movies in class. You will be required to do outside reading and keep a writing journal on the films and art that we view.

Two film screenings will happen at the UW Cinematheque on two Friday nights in February and they are required.

A dance party to music from Lusophone Africa will happen in early February and you will get extra credit for attending.

The final assignment will be in the form of a critical essay that brings together your thinking, reading, and viewing of one to three movies, paintings, songs, sculptures, etc.

Week 1: Who and what is Lusophone Africa?

Week 2: What are African expressive arts?

Read Karin Barber, pp. 1-23.

Week 3: Our Lady of the Chinese Shop – film by Ery Claver (screening at UW Cinematheque)

Read Cheryl Mei-ting Schmitz, “Performing China in Africa for the West,” Asia and Pacific Migration Journal, 27(1), 2018: 9-27.