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Date: Wednesday 5 January 2011
Time: 12:30-13:30
Place: Room 5B04, Pieter de la Court building, Wassenaarseweg 52,
Leiden.
Speakers: Till Förster (University of Basel)
Abstract: All African urban societies are in transition. There is
not one African city that can claim to have adopted a stable figuration
of the social and cultural forces that shape its historical form.
This statement often suffices to assume that African urban life is, by
its very character, anytime and anywhere informed by an extraordinary
degree of creativity. Since Karen Barber published her landmark
article
in 1987, this creativity of African cities was often identified with
what is usually framed as popular culture. The emergence of a new
popular culture that neither built on the former local, ethnic arts nor
on the mere imitation of Western modernity was associated with the
rising heterogeneity of the fast growing urban population. Composed of
people from all parts of the colonies and later the post-colonial nation
state, it fostered interactions of people with highly divergent
social and cultural backgrounds. The emergence of a novel African
bourgeoisie and, as its compliment, the urban masses of ordinary people
that all had their own “traditional” culture, was seen as the main
source of a vibrant and boundless cultural creativity. It touched on
all spheres of life and on all genres of art: music, writing, fine
arts
and
performing
arts.
Over
the
past
two
decades,
urban
popular
culture
has
been
celebrated
as
the
site
of
creativity
of
contemporary
Africa.
Its
attributes
were
the
agency
of
the
artists
as
the
freedom
of
expression,
the
resistance
to
political
domination
as
the
subversion
of
post-colonial
cultural
dominance.
 Till Förster holds the chair of social anthropology at the University of
Basel, Switzerland.
He
is
also
the
speaker
of
the
Centre
for
African
Studies
Basel.
He
works
on
visual
culture
and
on
political
transformations
and
governance
in
Africa.
His
regional
specialisations
are
West
and
Central
Africa,
in
particular
Côte
d’Ivoire
and
Cameroon.
Read Prof. Förster's CV
You are kindly requested to register for this seminar. |
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