SEMBENE OUSMANE AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE


Sembene Ousmane passed away in June 2007 leaving behind an extraordinary literary and film corpus. In a 1974 lecture, he underscored the centrality of culture in human society, noting that "Culture is political in all respects... the sum total of Man's spiritual and material needs.... It is the link between the cradle and the tomb." In his works, Sembene sought to demonstrate the dynamic relationship between culture and the discourse of African liberation. More so than most artists of his time, Sembene challenged his audiences and readers to explore the internal dynamics of the relationship between Africa and its former colonizers. He often shed light on controversial aspects of indigenous traditions and was critical of emerging cultural formations that compromised the progressive transformation of African societies. He was therefore critical of racialist and/or sectarian approaches in the quest for independence that disregarded the complicity of the traditional
and contemporary African elite. Consequently, Sembene's legacy requires a critical reassessment of the ideological underpinnings of culture and its complex relationship in current discourses on Africa in the era of globalization.

the co-editors Lifongo Vetinde and Amadou Fofana invite original contributions for a book on Sembene Ousmane to be published in 2011. We are interested in receiving proposals for substantial articles in English and French from scholars interested in re-evaluating Sembene's intellectual and artistic legacy framed around any of the following rubrics:

- Globalization
- Gender
- Race and Ethnicity
- Eco-Consciousness
- Historiography
- Panafricanism
- Women's Rights
- (Im)migration
- Space and Time
- Film Music
- Aesthetics
- Ideological Interventions
- Interview (unpublished)
- Miscellaneous

Send your abstracts, which should not be more than 300 words, via an E-mail attachment, not later than May 31 st 2010