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Project Summary
AFRICAN CINEMA: June 8 – July 6, 2005. Dakar, Senegal PROJECT SUMMARY The focus of the NEH Summer Institute in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa is AFRICAN CINEMA. It is scheduled to take place from June 8 to July 6, 2005, and it is open to US College and University faculty in the humanities and social sciences. Faculty from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Hispanic Serving (HSI) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU) are also particularly encouraged to apply. SCOPE, CONTENT AND APPROACH OF THE INSTITUTE The Institute surveys the history, theories, aesthetics and criticism
of African cinema from 1960 to the present. It examines the relationship
between cinema and other forms of creative practice in Africa, in
particular, African literature and African oral traditions. It also
explores the significance and use of African cinema in African human,
cultural and social development. The Institute will be organized
and conducted primarily on the basis of seminars, film screenings
and discussions. These are complemented by group lunches and dinners
and guided visits to various academic and film-related institutions
and other historical sites in and around Dakar. In addition, the
schedule allocates time to allow individual participants to view
films not on the workshop screening schedule, to consult individually
with filmmakers, scholars and others, and to engage the Dakar and
the general Senegambian context on their own terms. STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTE The Institute will run for four weeks, from June 8 to July 6, 2005,
and participants are required to stay for the entire duration of
the Institute. Attendance and participation at all sessions is
mandatory.
We will be based at the West African Research Center (WARC) at
Fann-Residence in Dakar, a few miles from the Hotel Ngor Diarama
where all participants
will be lodged. Some sessions will also be held at the hotel itself.
The West African Research Center is part of the Council of American
Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), and it has a good track record
of hosting similar projects from the US. Our experience there in
2001,
when we conducted a workshop on African Cinema for HBCU teachers
was quite pleasant. INSTITUTE FACULTY The faculty of the institute is composed of prominent scholars,
filmmakers, writers and artists from the United States, Senegal,
Gambia, Guinea,
Nigeria, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Mbye Cham, a professor of literature
and cinema
at Howard University and Manthia Diawara, professor of comparative
literature and cinema, Director of the Institute of African American
Affairs and
documentary filmmaker, will co-direct the Institute. Other members
of the faculty include
noted film scholar and literary/cultural essayist and Professor
at the Gallatin School and in Africana Studies at NYU, Clyde
Taylor;
Samba Gadjigo,
Professor
of French at Mount Holyoke College and the biographer of Ousmane
Sembène;
historian and cultural critic Boubacar Barry of Université Cheick Anta
Diop, literary scholar Ousmane Sène, also of Université Cheick
Anta Diop of Dakar; Siga Fatima Jagne-Jallow, an expert in Women's Studies,
Feminist, Cultural, Critical, and Post Colonial Theories; and Fatou
Sow,
currently with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
in Paris and a
leading figure in Senegalese cultural studies with acclaimed expertise
in oral traditions and written literatures. We also have Adebayo
Olukoshi, Director
of the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in
Africa (CODESRIA). INSTITUTE LOCATION The Institute will take place in Dakar at the West African
Research Center (WARC) at Fann-Residence in Dakar, a
few miles from the Hotel
Ngor Diarama where all participants will be lodged. The Ngor Diarama
is a three star hotel located next to the beach near the Leopold
Senghor International Airport. It has a long history of hosting
international conferences and meetings of professional
societies from all over
the world. There is a beach in front of the hotel. It also has
a swimming pool and tennis court, restaurants and bars,
and all the
rooms are fully air conditioned. We shall be shuttling between
the hotel and WARC. Some of the sessions of the institute
will take place
in this hotel, while others will be held at the WARC and, possibly,
at the Gorée Institute on historic Gorée Island. Both
Ngor Diarama and WARC are well equipped with facilities to handle
the needs of the Institute. Internet access is available at both
places as well as in various cafés around the city. STIPEND NEH provides
a stipend of $3000.00 to each selected participant to help cover
travel and living expenses in Dakar. We have worked out
a package of $2850.00 for air travel from New York and accommodation
(double occupancy) for the period of the institute. When selected,
we will ask each participant to authorize Howard University to withhold
the amount of $2850.00 from their stipend for the purpose of travel
and accommodation costs. A check for the remaining $150.00 will be
mailed to each participant before departure. INSURANCE AND MEDICAL EMERGENCIES Selected participants will be responsible for all costs related to medical and other such needs while in Dakar. While we do not anticipate any major health problems, other than the usual African variety of ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’, we want to stress the need to check with your insurance provider to make sure of the extent of coverage. It is highly recommended that participants take out an emergency medical evacuation policy, should this not be included in their current coverage. Dakar has excellent private medical facilities and professionals and we will work with the US Embassy in case the need arises. Selected participants will be required to consult with their doctors and public health professionals prior to departure to find out what vaccinations are required. At the moment, the only vaccination required is Yellow Fever. We will keep track of these on our part and will post the announcements on our website. Malaria is still an issue in Senegal, so participants should make sure they have the proper anti-malaria tablets at least three weeks prior to departure. We hope you will strongly consider joining us for this very exciting and productive intellectual and cultural summer in Dakar. APPLICATION The Institute is designed
to have an impact on the curricula of the participants’ institutions,
as well as the participants themselves by enabling them a) to create
new courses from the materials, knowledge
and experience gained in the Institute, b) to incorporate these materials
into courses they are already teaching and c) to enhance their own
scholarly and research work in African Studies and the humanities.
As such, each participant or group of participants will be required
to work on and produce a syllabus that incorporates materials from
the institute. Applicants should, therefore, make sure they identify
areas of personal research interest and/or curriculum development that
they intend to work on in the course of the Institute. This syllabus
will be submitted to the project directors no later than October 30,
2005 for inclusion in the final report to NEH. You will find on this website
our “Dear Colleague” letter
along with the general “Application Information and Instructions” and
an Application Cover Sheet from NEH. The deadline for submitting the
complete application is MARCH 1, 2005. Awards will be announced April
1, 2005. Send three (3) HARD COPIES (no e-mail submissions, please)
of the full application package to: Address all e-mail inquiries to Africancinema@howard.edu. You can also visit our website http://www.coas.howard.edu/neh/ for additional details on the Institute Daily Schedule, Reading List, Films, Bios of Institute Faculty, Links to other web resources and other relevant information. Best wishes and we look forward to hearing from you. Mbye Cham Manthia Diawara |