Barlet, Olivier. African Cinemas. Decolonizing the Gaze. London: Bloomsbury, 2000.

This book is both a personal journey and an introduction to the cinema cultures of Africa. A book about the politics of cultural survival, it is also a major overview of African cinema and television. The first part of the book traces the development of African cinema - from colonization to Afrocentrism. The author examines this development through a variety of fundamental themes: the decolonization of the imagination; the quest for legendary African origins and the mobilization of African cultural values. The second part of the book analyses specific films, particularly through narrative and in terms of their African specificity - in the use of silence, orality and humour. Finally, the author explores the social and economic contexts of the African cinema and television industry - including its often-vexed relations with the West and the problems of production and distribution African film-makers face. Winner of the French National Film Centre’s best film book of 1997 and now available in four languages, this is book which takes us into a process of learning how to look.

[Source: Bloomsbury].

Barlet, Olivier. Contemporary African Cinema. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2016.

African and notably sub-Saharan African film’s relative eclipse on the international scene in the early twenty-first century does not transcend the growth within the African genre. This time period has seen African cinema forging a new relationship with the real and implementing new aesthetic strategies, as well as the emergence of a post-colonial popular cinema. Drawing on more than 1,500 articles, reviews, and interviews written over the past fifteen years, Olivier Barlet identifies the critical questions brought about by the evolution of African cinema. In the process, he offers us a personal and passionate vision, making this book an indispensable sum of thought that challenges preconceived ideas and enriches an approach to cinema as a critical art.

[Source: Michigan State University Press].

Douglas Barrie

Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace, The International Institute for Strategic Studies

NGO

London, UK

Bassirou Diomaye Faye

Politician

Politics

Senegal

Battle, Michael. Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa's Confessor. Westminster John Knox Press, 2021.

The first biography of its kind about Desmond Tutu, this book introduces readers to Tutu's spiritual life and examines how it shaped his commitment to restorative justice and reconciliation. Desmond Tutu was a pivotal leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and remains a beloved and important emblem of peace and justice around the world. Even those who do not know the major events of Tutu's life - receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, serving as the first black archbishop of Cape Town and primate of Southern Africa from1986-1996, and chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1995-1998 -recognize him as a charismatic political and religious leader who helped facilitate the liberation of oppressed peoples from the ravages of colonialism. But the inner landscape of Tutu's spirituality, the mystical grounding that spurred his outward accomplishments, often goes unseen. Rather than recount his entire life story, this book explores Tutu's spiritual life and contemplative practices-particularly Tutu's understanding of Ubuntu theology, which emphasizes finding one's identity in community-and traces the powerful role they played in subverting the theological and spiritual underpinnings of apartheid. Michael Battle's personal relationship with Tutu grants readers an inside view of how Tutu's spiritual agency cast a vision that both upheld the demands of justice and created space to synthesize the stark differences of a diverse society. Battle also suggests that North Americans have much to learn from Tutu's leadership model as they confront religious and political polarization in their own context.

Source: book descriptions by publisher, culled from https://www.scribd.com/

Battle, Michael. Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu. Pilgrim Press, 2009.

Reconciliation is Michael Battle's highly original analysis of Bishop Tutu's theology of ubuntu - an African concept recognizing that persons and groups form their identities in relation to one another. This model proved successful in opposing the apartheid racism in South Africa, but it also offers a Christian paradigm for resisting oppression wherever it appears. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, including Tutu's unpublished speeches and sermons, as well as many secondary sources, Battle portrays the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a theologian who embraces Anglican orthodoxy and who has consistently applied that framework to issues of race in South Africa. Yet Tutu is much more than a conventional theologian. He is, as Battle shows, not only an articulate preacher and at times an unwilling politician, but a genuinely committed theologian whose deepest roots are in prayer and protest.

[Source: Pilgrim Press].

Bayimba Foundation

Uganda

Contact:

‍+256 414 591 670‍+256 751 960 602/‍info@bayimba.org

bayimba.org

Description:

Bayimba recognizes the relevance of arts and culture in social and economic development as well as individual human development. Its vision is a vibrant arts and culture sector that is professional, creative and viable and contributes to social and economic development in Uganda and East Africa. Bayimba is therefore dedicated to contribute to making Uganda a significant hub for arts and culture on the African continent and led by its values of respect, shared leadership, transparency, accountability, learning, and collaboration.

Beall, Jo, and Mduduzi Ngonyama. "Indigenous institutions, traditional leaders and elite coalitions for development: The case of Greater Durban, South Africa." (2009). Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers Series 2 (55). Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

Chieftaincy is the most common form of indigenous institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. This study examined the role of traditional leaders in Greater Durban area of KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. The study sought to find out why some traditional leaders successfully participate in inclusive elite coalitions and what roles they played in facilitating institutional arrangements alongside other political actors to create a hybrid political order.