In 2015, the #RhodesMustFall movement swept South African university campuses before inspiring an international wave of decolonial protest. Live acts of...

Performance and Social Meaning in Africa (HIST0875)

In 2015, the #RhodesMustFall movement swept South African university campuses before inspiring an international wave of decolonial protest. Live acts of performance were central to these events. However, this was not merely culture as an accompaniment to protest but culture actively shaping protest. And, in the context of African history, this is nothing new. This module traces this history and tells the story of performance culture as embedded within Africa’s political sphere. Moving beyond the euro-centric written history of colonialism and the postcolony, students will learn to ‘read’ performance and appreciate the diverse ways in which performed acts of African agency open-up, challenge and destabilise some of the knottier questions of social and political life across the continent: past and present.

Beginning with an insight into Blackface performance in 1920s West Africa, students will explore how culture flows within Africa and internationally before interacting with highly localised questions of power and resistance. During Term 1, they will continue - through a focus on song, dance and electronic media - to encounter performance and spoken word as a means of interpreting and challenging colonial rule, as well as mobilising resistance to it.

Term 2 moves forwards to the postcolonial era. Students will confront some of the key issues confronting contemporary Africa, ranging from reconciliation and the politics of populism to HIV/Aids and gender rights. They will encounter how today’s performance artists draw on established cultural archives, or deploy relatively new genres such as hip-hop and stand-up comedy, in order to act out and ‘make’ the present.

By growing to appreciate the important role performance culture has in understanding African history, students will gain new insights into how national and individual identities have been, and continue to be, made and remade through art.