John Akomfrah, Stuart Hall and the Film Essay
Akomfrah's films gives voice to the legacy of the African diaspora in Europe, and his experimental approach to narrative and structure helped pave the way for the re-emergence of the "essay film" today.
History
New Photography Book Depicts the South African Social Landscape
Between 2012 and 2013, an exercise took place known as the France South Africa Season. This
The social history of a “moral panic”
There is no evidence that Nigeria is under attack from gays and lesbians or the nation's "culture" being eroded from within by "waves of sexual marauders."
The Year of Blackface in the Netherlands
Interview with Verene Shepherd, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on People of African Descent.
The troubled border of the colonial and postcolonial
Jean-Marie Teno's film, 'Une Feuille dans le Vent' (A Leaf in the Wind), lays bare the affective costs of public silence in Cameroon.
How a coup d’état drove a scholar to social media
Call me a curmudgeon, but I had never really understood the value of social media. I
The Prisoner and his Pin-up Girl
Apartheid's prisons tolerated 'National Geographic; For Nelson Mandela, who knew better, it was porn.
Africa is not a country
We must stop thinking that 'Africa’ must either progress together or stagnate. Each country has its own story, its own sovereignty.
An Interactive Study Map of African States
History professsor Laura Mitchell developed this interactive map for her students for a map quiz and for the rest of us dispel the notion that Africa is a country. Go on, do the exercise.
A short film about African migrants in Barcelona
How does one hold on to a deeply rooted sense of self, a cultural identity, and make new paths to adapt and make new forms of home?
To Come Back from Qunu
Our correspondent, attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the founder of post-apartheid South Africa, reflects on Madiba's legacy for his own children.
Nelson Mandela and the Dutch
The mainstream view is that the Netherlands was a staunch supporter of South Africa's liberation movement? The story is a bit more complicated.
The Last Founding Father of African Decolonization
It is not hard to understand the iconic status of Nelson Mandela and the overflow of emotion his death has provoked in the Pan-African world.
South African Jazz for Nelson Mandela
A playlist of jazz tunes dedicated to South Africa's first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela.
The Woolworths ‘Tribute’ to Nelson Mandela
Are corporate entities really well intentioned in celebrating Mandela the freedom fighter or are they merely using these tributes to position their brands on the right side of history?
Why aren’t we discussing Nelson Mandela’s politics?
As much as the world wants to deify Mandela, to do so in the abstract with no reference to his actual politics is absurd.
Poster art that challenged apartheid
The African Activist Archive Project website contains posters from the African solidarity movement from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Remember to call at my grave
John Langalibalele Dube was the first President-General of the ANC. Nelson Mandela its 11th president. Mandela was a great admirer of Dube, an exceptional figure in his own right.
Nelson Mandela Did Not Walk Alone
In the early 1990s I was teaching Economics in a fifth floor classroom at Khanya College
Nelson Mandela’s Humanity was a Political Education
The author, remembering Mandela, writes how South Africa galvanized progressive energies in the US in the 1980s.