KWARA STATE UNIVERSITY HOSTS “NOLLYWOOD: A NATIONAL CINEMA”, AN INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP.
The Kwara State University will be organising its inaugural international workshop, which will form the bedrock of the intellectual life of the university next month.
Tagged “Nollywood: A National Cinema”, An International Workshop, this is the maiden workshop of the Kwara State University Conferences and Workshops series
The workshop which will hold between the 7th to 10th of July 2010. At Kwara Hotel. It will feature internationally renowned scholars and practitioners in film and Nollywood studies. The concentrated focus is on Nigeria’s Nollywood.
Paper presenters from across Africa, North America, the Caribean and Europe have confirmed their participation.
The workshop aims to discuss one of the most significant media of our time, Nollywood, and how it can be to repositioned to work for the Nigerian national image & cultural propagation.
Controversial as Nollywood may seem to a lot of us, there is no denying the fact that it is influential all over the continent of Africa and beyond and that in the last twenty years, it has become the mirror through which the outside world looks at the Nigerian people and nation.
The central question of this workshop can be repositioned in this way: if Nollywood is a national cinema, meaning that it is the cinema of Nigeria, how does it represent the nation.
This inaugural workshop will bring together scholars of and practitioners in Nollywood from North America, Europe and Africa to Nigeria with the intention of engaging a productive dialogue about the importance of this cultural form across disciplines and from different theoretical and pragmatic perspectives.
Specifically this workshop is aimed at doing two things: To call attention to one of the most ambitious programmes of any Department of Performing Arts in the country; and to show that the Kwara State University is eager to be the first in the country to set out a film village that is of world class standard.
As a newly established university with a vision that is both local and global, the current workshop highlights the local, as it engages with global in meaningful ways.
Opening ceremony for the workshop is on Thursday 7th of July, 2010, at Hall B, Kwara Hotels Limited, Ilorin at 4.00 pm.
Other programmes slated for the workshop are
PROGRAM OF EVENTS
Nollywood: A National Cinema?: An International Workshop
July 7, 2010
Kwara Hotel: Hall B
Opening Ceremonies:
4.00p.m-4.20p.m
Welcome Speech-
Vice Chancellor of Kwara State University, Kwasu, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Naallah
4.20-4.30p.m
Speech by the Commissioner of Education, Kwara State
4.30-4.40p.m
Speech by the Commissioner of Information, Kwara State
4.40-5.00p.m
An Address by the Dean of School of Visual and Performing Arts
5.30p.m – 6.00pm
The First lady, of Kwara State, Barister Oluwatoyin Saraki declares the Workshop open.
6.00-6.15pm :
Address on Guest Convener: Prof. Onookome Okome Univ. of Alberta, Canada.
6.15-7.00pm
Lead Paper 1:
Professor Dr. Jane M. Bryce
Chair of Languages and Literature-University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, West Indies
“Signs of femininity, symptoms of malaise: figurations of 'woman' in popular video”
This paper addresses the question raised in the workshop briefing paper concerning the nature of a 'national' cinema and the place of women in it. It adopts a perspective based on the recent history of narrativisation - the role of the universities, written literature, newspapers and romance fiction magazines - and the transition to video as the predominant cultural form in Nigeria, to show how each of these has contributed to shaping the generic conventions within which a contemporary consciousness can be articulated. It demonstrates how a prescriptive moralistic tendency in the criticism of women's writing is reproduced in the criticism of Nollywood, arising from a desire in both cases to make them conform to a normative majoritarian concept of culture. It goes on to interrogate representations of femininity in Nollywood for the ways they potentially exceed the intentions of film-makers, signifying not so much the 'diabolic' nature of women as the corruption of patriarchal power and an implicit critique of the state that wields it.
7.00p.m-7.30pm
Screening-Awam Amkpa, “Nollywood”
7.30-9.00pm
Welcome-Cocktail
July 8, 2010
Kwara Hotel Hall B
Panel 1: 10.00 am-12.00 noon-Chairs, Afolabi Adesanyan
Professor Dr. Harry Garuba
Director of African Studies center, University of Cape Town, South Africa
“Outside Western Eyes: Nollywood, Modernity and the Nation”
Professor Dr. Femi Shaka
Department of Creative Art, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
“Interrogating the Spectatorial Gaze in Nollywood”
Dr. Ogaga Okuyade
Department of English, College of Education, Warri, Delta State
“The Representation of the Aqua-Matriarch in Nollywood”
Dr. Senayon Olaoluwa
Department of English, Oshun State University, Oshogbo, Nigeria
“Igue!!! Monarchy, paradox and Cultural Passage in Nollywood: Some Preliminary Notes”
12.30-1.30-Lunch
1.30-2.30p.m
Students’ Panel-“Nollywood and Us”
(Names of Students to be supplied)
2.30-3.30p.m
Tea/Coffee Break
3.30-4.30-Chair, Jonathan Haynes-Brooklyn College, Long Island
Book Presentation and Signing-
Speech by the author- Professor Dr. Manthia Diawara, NYU, New York
Panel 2: 4.30-6.30p.m, Chair, Femi Shaka, Port Harcourt
Dr. Ambrose Uchenunu
Department of Mass Communication/Film Studies, Western Delta University, Delta State, Nigeria
“Nollywood in the Metropole (London): Parallel Cultures and the Diaspora Moviemaking Nightmare”
Mr. Shaibu Husseini
“Quest for A national Cinema: Nollywood and the Burden of Copycat”
Dr. Francis Gbormittah
Department Arts, School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
“Film and Television Education in Cultural Training Institutions: The Experience of Performing Arts (SPA) University of Ghana”
Prof. Dr. Onookome Okome
Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
“Do Nollywood Films Matter?”
6.30p.m-7.00pm
Tea/Coffee Break
7.00pm-8.00 p/m
Lead paper 2
Prof Jonathan Haynes-Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York
“History, cyberspace, borders, and collective action: Projects around Nigeria’s film culture”
Much can and should be done around Nigeria’s film culture to strengthen, preserve, publicize, investigate, and evaluate it. Preserving the early VHS films and preserving the memories of those who were present at the beginning of the industry must happen soon to make possible an adequate history. Easy availability of a canon of the most important films is crucial if Nollywood is to be seen as a film tradition rather than a curiosity, a wild, anonymous phenomenon. Ambitious websites should develop complete, structured, and authoritative knowledge about the industry for potential investors, the international cultural community, journalists, and academics. On the academic side, the study of Nigeria’s film culture would progress more rapidly if there were more integration and specialization of effort. One set of tasks that needs collective attention is describing the borders of the national film culture—the interfaces of Nollywood with the Hausa, Yoruba, and Ghanaian film industries; with the Nigerian diaspora; with preceding Nigerian audio-visual culture, especially television; with transnational media forms, historically and at present; with the rest of Africa; and the internal segmentation of Nollywood along class lines. All these projects would lead to a deeper, fuller, and sharper characterization of what is distinctive about Nollywood, formally, thematically, culturally, and stylistically.
7.30-8.30p.m
Dinner
July 9, 2010
10.00 am-12.00noon
Nollywood Panel -
“Meeting Nollywood: Women, Culture, Language”
Speakers:
Bello Adebayo (Oga Bello), Emem Isong, Tunde Kelani, Funke Akindele, Bond Emeruah
Panel 3:
Dr. I Z Aliagan-Department of Mass Communication, Kwara State University, Malete
“Images and Impressions of Nollywood in the Nigerian Media”
Prof. Dr. Akin Adesokan- Department of Comparative Literature, Indianan University, US
“Nollywood: Outlines of a Trans-ethnic Practice"
Prof. Dr. Awam Ampka-African Studies, NYU, NY, US (Dean of Arts, Kwasu)
“Nollywood and the Challenges of Re-Imaging Africa”
Matthew H. Brown- PhD Candidate and Fulbright Scholar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US
“The Crippled Film Industry of A Crippled Nation”
7.30p.m-9.30p.m
Farewell Dinner
We welcome you to this Workshop.
Cordially,
Guest Convener
Onookome Okome (PhD)
Alexander von Humboldt Research Professor
Visiting Professor (KwasU)
Professor of African Literature and Film
Department of English and Film Studies,
University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E5
ookome@ualberta.ca, 780 492 7819
onookome.okome@kwasu.edu.ng
