<p> The first representations of Africa in film can be traced back to the beginning of cinema, and between 1895 and 1900. The Lumi&egrave;re brothers and Georges M&eacute;li&egrave;s had made Africa a site for cinematic representations; however, a close study of both those initial filmic moments and colonial cinema reveals how Africa was a site for European projections. The objective of this dissertation is to understand how Africa has evolved from the colonial cinema to the modern day West Africa's cinema. The author traces the history of Africa in film and its various forms of cinematic expressions and discusses the emergence of new aesthetics in Sub-Saharan Francophone cinema serving the purpose of signification, only by selecting certain properties of real objects. By bridging the fields of film semiotics, narratology, postcolonial theories and cultural studies the author hopes to contribute to a better understanding of Africa as a place and space in cinema.</p>

This dissertation positions Germaine Acogny’s Modern African Dance Technique (“the Technique”) as a mode of knowledge that reveals insight into nationalism, Négritude, modernism and perspectives on modernity during the early years of Senegal’s independence. By investigating the Technique in relationship to its historical context, this study aims to identify how cultural and political values, which comprise the Technique’s embodied knowledge, are evident in its aesthetic design and philosophical underpinnings. A hybrid methodological approach is employed that merges theoretical analysis with autoethnography. Fieldwork in Senegal, archival research, interviews and embodied practice informed this study. A new theoretical frame, Wòrándá, is introduced that contributes to existing theories on embodiment in African and Diasporic dance techniques and performance. The findings of this dissertation conclude that the Technique sits at the junction of African and Euro-American cultural templates, which coalesce in the production of a codified movement technique that both embodies and confronts constructivist influences. Correlations are suggested between the Technique, Africentric perspectives and cultural nationalism. The Technique also fulfills Léopold Sedar Senghor’s vision of métissage (cultural blending) and cultural progress. Each of these ideological influences underscores the Technique’s significance as a modernist intervention on the genre of neo-traditional African concert dance, as its progenitor seeks to challenge dominant expectations of the African body in dance. / Dance

FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Cearà / Dentro dos estudos de histÃria e cultura africana e afrodescendente a presente dissertaÃÃo faz uma inserÃÃo inovadora dentro da tradiÃÃo do IfÃ. O Ifà à um corpo literÃrio e filosÃfico, que descende de uma divindade entre dois mundos entendidos como o fÃsico e o espiritual. As sistematizaÃÃes das representaÃÃes do Ifà trabalham as questÃes sobre Ãlgebra binÃria e a organizaÃÃo dos significados do Ifà foi o objetivo da pesquisa idealizada. A importÃncia deste tema està em examinar conhecimentos especÃficos de uma cultura e tradiÃÃo que tem como processo educativo a oralidade e a preservaÃÃo da cultura interdisciplinar. Adicionamos à nossa proposta o exame sistemÃtico dos conceitos e proposiÃÃes de vida que abrange desenvolver a coletividade e individualidade, no aprender e entender atravÃs do exercÃcio das virtudes filosÃficas, especÃficas do pensar yorubÃ, partindo da concepÃÃo da natureza e da genealogia divina da criaÃÃo dentro da tradiÃÃo africana herdada do Antigo Egito. Ifà à pluralidade cultural que pode ser ciÃncia, religiÃo e sociabilidade. AlÃm do que jà foi explanado, trazemos para este corpo de trabalho a geometria, estÃtica e medicina dentro do aspecto inter-relacional, a fim de mostrar como acontece a absorÃÃo de conhecimentos. Pretendemos ficar distantes da base teÃrica universalista e eurocentrista buscando o aprofundamento da filosofia africana e a interdisciplinaridade para contemplar os aspectos culturais e Ãtnico-brasileiros bem como estar de acordo com a Lei n 10.639/03. Assim, com base na oralidade presente nas religiÃes de matriz africana e, atravÃs do corpo literÃrio do IfÃ, embarcaremos na complexidade da razÃo e da lÃgica metafÃsica e atemporal para entendermos a cogniÃÃo no aspecto da cosmovisÃo institutiva de valores e princÃpios. / Within the history of studies and African culture and afrodescendencia this dissertation is an innovative integration within the Ifa tradition. Ifa is a literary and philosophical body, which descends from a deity between two worlds understood as the physical and the spiritual. The systematization of Ifa representations work questions on binary algebra and organization of Ifa meanings was the purpose of the idealized research. The importance of this issue is to examine specific knowledge of a culture and tradition that has the educational process orality and the preservation of interdisciplinary culture. We add our proposal for the systematic examination of the concepts and propositions of life that includes developing the collectivity and individuality in learning and understanding through the exercise of philosophical virtues, specific thinking Yoruba, starting from the design of nature and divine genealogy of creation within the African tradition inherited from Ancient Egypt. Ifa is cultural diversity that can be science, religion and sociability. We bring to this body of work beyond what has already been explained geometry, aesthetics and medicine within the inter-relational aspect to show as is the absorption of knowledge. We intend to stay away from the universalistic, Eurocentric theoretical basis seeking the deepening of African philosophy and interdisciplinarity to contemplate the cultural and ethnic-Brazilian aspects as well as being in accordance with Law No. 10,639 / 03. Thus, based on orality present in religions of African origin, and through the literary body of IfÃ, embark on the complexity of reason and metaphysics and timeless logic to understand cognition in the aspect of institutiva worldview values and principles.

From the animal and trickster tales told by enslaved Africans in America to current education and performance based storytelling by contemporary African American storytellers, this study traces the aesthetics and epistemologies of the collaborative African diasporic oral expressive traditions. Through systematic analysis based on data derived from bibliographic and archival sources, interviews, and participant observation, it delineates the progression of the repertoire and content of Blackstorytelling through the lives and works of national and internationally known storytellers, Jackie Torrence, Linda Goss and Charlotte Blake Alston. Its theoretical framework is inspired by Kariamu Welsh Asante’s aesthetic senses coupled with pertinent ideas of other scholars in the field. The study demonstrates the existence of significant evidence of cultural preservation and artistic re-interpretation of the African aesthetic in Blackstorytelling. The genre comprises both traditional and contemporary expressions of African American culture. As such, it is a major component of the universal African oral continuum / African American Studies

Es'kia Mphahlele's concept of African humanism was a seminal influence on Black Consciouness thought and provided the philosophical basis for a landmark body of South African criticism and aesthetics wilh roots in Africa. African humanism as a black ethos, combined with rich metaphoric speech, symbols, values and myths resurrected from the deep African past, afforded the author a powerful cultural weapon with which to criticize centuries of colonialism, racism, and state apartheid, related western industrial forces of economic exploitation and alienation. Moreover, the counterweights of African humanism and alienation in the dialogue of two selves -- one that is Western-educated and colonized and the other African -- contribute key elements of realism, vitality, humour, insight, cultural identity, and characterization to Mphahlele's most effective protest writing which, in turn, has helped to shape a black nationalist vision which has surprising relevance to South Africa in the 1990s. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Es'kia Mphahlele's concept of African humanism was a seminal influence on Black Consciouness thought and provided the philosophical basis for a landmark body of South African criticism and aesthetics wilh roots in Africa. African humanism as a black ethos, combined with rich metaphoric speech, symbols, values and myths resurrected from the deep African past, afforded the author a powerful cultural weapon with which to criticize centuries of colonialism, racism, and state apartheid, related western industrial forces of economic exploitation and alienation. Moreover, the counterweights of African humanism and alienation in the dialogue of two selves -- one that is Western-educated and colonized and the other African -- contribute key elements of realism, vitality, humour, insight, cultural identity, and characterization to Mphahlele's most effective protest writing which, in turn, has helped to shape a black nationalist vision which has surprising relevance to South Africa in the 1990s. / English Studies / M.A. (English)