African 413: Contemporary African and Caribbean Drama

This course surveys a diverse selection of major contemporary African and Caribbean dramatic works. It explores the wealth and diversity of theatrical traditions in Africa and the Caribbean and is structured around fundamental topics: the “encounter” between Africa and Europe and its enduring and sometimes indelible repercussions, the twin postcolonial rejections of the legacies of colonialism and the nationalist projects of governing elites as well as the resultant denunciation of oppression and human suffering. The key formal and stylistic questions we examine center on the productive interaction(s) between modern drama and dramaturgy (largely written and produced in European languages) and traditional (or other) performance forms. Among the playwrights we will study figure Aimé Césaire, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, Ama Ata Aidoo, Sony Lab’ou Tansi, Mustapha Matura, Ebrahim Hussein, and a few others.