Rethinking African Cultural Production

Frieda Ekotto, Kenneth W. Harrow, and an international group of scholars set forth new understandings of the conditions of contemporary African cultural production in this forward-looking volume. Arguing that it is impossible to understand African cultural productions without knowledge of the structures of production, distribution, and reception that surround them, the essays grapple with the shifting notion of what "African" means when many African authors and filmmakers no longer live or work in Africa. While the arts continue to flourish in Africa, addressing questions about marginalization, what is center and what periphery, what traditional or conservative, and what progressive or modern requires an expansive view of creative production.

Frieda Ekotto is Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, and Comparative Literature and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan.

Kenneth W. Harrow is Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State University. He is author of Trash: African Cinema from Below (IUP, 2013).