A slow emancipation
What peanut trading in late 19th century Senegal tells us about the fine line between slavery and freedom.
Senegal
The empire of words
The fiction of Senegalese writer and filmmaker Khady Sylla not only used speech to create worlds and ways of being in the world, but used speech as a world and a character in its own right.
An invitation to join a pilgrimage
Felwine Sarr’s 'African Meditations' embraces spiritual traditions as a worldview rather than a worldview about the people who practice those traditions.
Emancipation that costs servitude
Filmmaker Khady Sylla amplifies the voices of and gives visibility to the domestic workers tending to the homes of Africa’s middle classes.
Where the spirits conquer her
The Senegalese director, Safi Faye’s classic 1996 film, Mossane, is a love tragedy and a spiritual quest in Sereer land.
The colonial wounds of Senegal’s girlchild
In ‘Black Girl’ (1966) and ‘Cuties’ (2020), M'Bissine T. Diop is a cautionary figure who warns of colonialism's wounds and afterlives for Black girl belonging in the present day.
The land doesn’t lie
Safi Faye's 1976 film, 'A Farmer's Love Letter,' exposes the gap between the post-colonial state and the concerns of ordinary people.
To create or to perish
The last film of underappreciated Senegalese director, Khady Sylla dealt with mental health. It is worth revisiting it now for its groundbreaking portrayal of depression suffered by two women friends.
Mothers and mothering
Director Alice Diop’s 'Saint Omer' is preoccupied with what binds women together, the traumas that are inherited, shared and possibly overcome.
The labor of land
In order to better resist contemporary, neocolonial accumulation, we need to historicize land grabs in Africa.
Sembene’s Africa is everyone’s Africa
If someone had to hold the title of father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembéne would be the most compelling candidate.
The haunting draw of the West
To be African means at some point to desire to leave. African cinema can provide solace for our tortured relationship to the West and our own continent.
The body in flight
The 14th edition of the Dakar Biennale puts up the first significant survey of Senegalese artist El Hadji Sy’s work in the city.
Omar Blondin Diop and Issa Samb’s Senegal
Activist Blondin Diop and artist Samb are exemplars of Senegal’s post-independence promise and crisis, marked by the global uprisings of May 1968. Mustapha Saha was a friend to both of them.
Sanctioning the regime in Senegal
After defying the state apparatus in March 2021, Senegalese voters sent a strong message of disobedience and sanction via their ballots in January 2022 and signaling their readiness for another regime change in 2024.
People see women as enemies of the nation
Recently, gender-based violence has entered Senegal’s national conversation. But are people only paying lip service? On the AIAC Podcast we discuss women and the nation.
Two women, two stories, both winners
The documentary film Mane about two women—a rapper and a wrestler—is a much-needed boost of fresh air in the male-saturated tale of the “Generation hip hop” of Senegal.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere
Thoughts on the conclusion of the 2021 African Cup of Nations.
If only these walls could talk
Street names are political weapons. They produce memories, attachment and intimacy—all while often sneakily distorting history.
Where do just ideas come from
Exploring Senegal’s early post-colonial history, to make sense of the unhappiness with the government of incumbent president Macky Sall.