CALL FOR PAPERS: (DE)GENDERING THE POSTCOLONIAL

de genere: journal of literary, postcolonial and gendered studies has just issued its first call for papers. Please make note of it and pass word to anybody who might be interested in contributing to an exciting new publication. The online open-access academic journal de genere offers a space for interdisciplinary research and critical debate in gender and postcolonial studies. The journal will be published …

THE KANGA: MODERNITY, CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION AND CULTURAL TRANSLATION IN COLONIAL ZANZIBARI FASHION

Last week I stumbled upon the online exhibition Sailors and Daughters: Early Photography and the Indian Ocean curated by Erin Haney, which exhibits photographic documents from the early 20th century of the everyday lives of the maritime societies of East Africa, the Persian Gulf and other Indian Ocean ports. This is a notable curatorial work for many reasons, not least because it shares material that is …

SHARABLE STORYTELLING, REASPORA, AND GHANAIAN FASHION: WATCHING AN AFRICAN CITY

About one year has passed since An African City debuted on YouTube and this web series about five girlfriends in their thirties who relocate to Ghana from the US continues to be one of few audiovisual works aimed at a Western audience that explicitly addresses Afropolitanism. Compared to the host of existing scholarship (Mbembe), online resources, and photographic works focusing on the experiences of cosmopolitan Africans based …

FASHION FILMS, KENYAN HERITAGE, AND PROMOTIONAL AUDIOVISUAL HYBRIDS

Recently, I have had the pleasure to get back in touch with some wonderful colleagues from my previous research project (conducted at the Centre for Digital Cultures of Leuphana University) on audiovisual paratexts. They invited me to contribute to their blog Watching the Trailer that investigates the viewing/consuming context of trailers (what place, what media, what else is occurring and what comes after), and …