Contemporary African Screen Worlds

Contemporary African Screen Worlds brings together a new generation of African screen media scholars who explore and theorize the dynamic, interactive screen worlds that have arisen in contemporary Africa due to dramatic global changes in technology. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, extensive interviews, and specific case studies, the contributors bring to life the complex materialities and entanglements of film spectatorship, fandom, production, and circulation in Africa. They particularly attend to the interfaces among film audiences, actors, makers, platforms, and screens both small and large. Engaging with more than a dozen national contexts across the continent, the book reveals the diversity of African screen media practices and the creativity and agency of the people who passionately generate them, from film craftworkers in Nigeria and film students in Ghana to film fans in Rwanda and Burkina Faso. By focusing on the work of powerful platforms (such as Netflix and MTVShuga) and ordinary people (such as domestic workers watching Nollywood films in rural Kenya), this volume grapples with the effects and affects of digitization, mobile screens, media convergence, and the televisual turn in Africa.

Contributors. Moradewun Adejunmobi, Añulika Agina, Alexander Bud, Lindiwe Dovey, Femi Eromosele, Pier Paolo Frassinelli, Alexandra Grieve, Jonathan Haynes, Joe Jackson, Alessandro Jedlowski, Dennis-Brook Prince Lotsu, Alison MacAulay, Elastus Mambwe, Asteway M. Woldemichael, Nedine Moonsamy, Elizabeth Olayiwola, Temitayo Olofinlua, Rashida Resario, Estrella Sendra, Robin Steedman, Michael W. Thomas, Stefanie Van de Peer, Solomon Waliaula

Lindiwe Dovey is Professor of Film and Screen Studies, SOAS University of London.

Añulika Agina is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the Pan-Atlantic University Lagos.

Michael W. Thomas is Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies, SOAS University of London.