African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Based on a conference which took place in Sandton, Johannesburg from 14-15 July 2008., 346 p., This conference is the first of three conferences on the African diaspora with respect to the returnee phenomenon of 'Back to Africa'. Contents: volume 1. Afro-Brazilian returnees and their communities -- volume 2. The ideology and practice of the African returnee phenomenon from the Caribbean and North-America to Africa.
164 p., Explores four contemporary novels and a film that rely heavily on photographic and mass-media images to illuminate, articulate, and critique modern-day Black urban existence: Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco (1997), Chris Abani's Graceland (2004), John Edgar Wideman's Fanon , Paulo Lins' Cidade de Deus (1997), and Fernando Meirelles' 2002 film adaptation of Lins' novel City of God . Chapters examine the ways in which photographic and/or mass-media images are used as narrative tropes or devices for representing the material conditions of an emerging slum existence. The author argues that each text reveals a preoccupation with the rise of global urbanism and visual culture as new types of discursive spaces--new kinds of "texts"-- that shape not only the real life of black people, but also the literary landscape of Black writing across the globe.