Introduction: Teaching African Media in the Global Academy

Abstract

This Close-Up aims to address some of the challenges that Africanists face not only in developing and executing their diverse research agendas but also in addressing those agendas to the field of film and media studies—a field that has, in many ways, seemed content to let other disciplines (anthropology, area studies, cultural studies) decide the terms of the debate. Contributors discuss various strategies for bringing African media—already at the center of so many global modes of cultural production and industrial development—to the center of the field of cinema and media studies.