|
Description: |
This course will look at how artists and intellectuals from across the African continent have used the internet to shape culture, society, and art forms in the 21st century. We’ll study a wide range of material, from viral blogs, pop culture e-zines, and hypertext fiction, to music, video art, and digital exhibits in fashion and cultural heritage. We’ll also study the ways young people have used social media in recent years to galvanize movements for social change, like #EndSars in Nigeria and #RhodesMustFall in South Africa. How do Teju Cole’s tweeted short stories, or the Nest Collective’s crime thriller Facebook videos, engage global audiences? How do these and other works shape conversations on topics as disparate as migration, police brutality, Afrofuturism, style, and the space of LGBTQ life? Together we’ll examine how African artists and thinkers have taken to the internet to critically engage our contemporary world, cultivate new aesthetic forms, and create new forms of community and belonging. |