Cinema and Development in West Africa: Film as a Vehicle for Liberation

Acknowledgments

ix acknowledgments this book is the culmination of several years of research and has benefited from the support, encouragement, and critical insights of many colleagues, friends, family, and institutions. i wish to thank Herman lebovics for providing the inspiration for undertaking a study of the intersection of culture, economics, and the state. He has been a wonderful mentor and very dear friend. His unwavering support , unvarnished critiques, and guidance have been invaluable to me. olufemi vaughan has been a constant source of energy, intellectual engagement, and profound friendship. our long conversations together through the years have generated vital questions and led to the significant rethinking of fundamental issues around the role of the state, civil society, and globalization in shaping postcolonial africa. i thank nwachukwu frank Ukadike, who read the entire manuscript and provided important suggestions for improving the narrative. His work on african cinema has strongly influenced on my own engagement with the subject. toyin falola also read parts of the manuscript and offered support and encouragement for the project. i thank mamadou Diouf, whose humor, intellectual adroitness, and deep commitment to the general welfare of senegal’s people is an inspiring model of committed academic work. i wish also to express my profound thanks to ahmad sikainga, alamin mazrui, and the late John Conteh-morgan for welcoming me to the african american and african studies Department at the ohio state University and providing an immediate community of africanist colleagues that made me feel at home. i will always miss John’s humanity and cheerful smile. i thank my colleagues in the History Department at osU as well as those on osU’s marion campus who contributed to making this book possible. i owe gratitude for the support of the following institutions that provided the structural means to bring this study to fruition. The College of the arts and sciences at osU awarded a research enhancement Grant to fund work in senegal’s national archives. The History Department furnished an rtap fellowship to finance three years of overseas research in West africa and france. The marion campus of osU provided a professional Development Grant that enabled me to present some of the project’s preliminary findings at conferences in the United states and overseas. i wish to thank the staff at several archives, whose generous assistance was vital to compiling the substantive material that made this study a reality. They include the remarkable and knowledgeable personnel at the Centre des archives d’outre-mer in aix-en-provence, france, the archives de la république du sénégal in Dakar, senegal, the Centre des archives contemporaines in fontainebleau, france, and the x | Acknowledgments Centre Georges pompidou in paris, france. The pompidou hosted a retrospective exhibit on african cinema in 2005, featuring the work of manthia Diawara, that strongly influenced the direction of this investigation. i also thank Dee mortensen at indiana University press for so strongly embracing this project, helping to improve the manuscript, and being a wonderful editor. sarah Jacobi also provided crucial assistance in ushering the study through the publication process. most importantly, i offer my deepest thanks and owe the greatest debt to my wife, partner, companion, and colleague stephanie smith. Her insights into the vital role of artists and culture in shaping identities as well as state practices in latin america have contributed immensely to improving this study’s argument and opening new vistas for inquiry. she is the love of my life, the source of all of my happiness, a person without whom i cannot imagine experiencing life’s journey. ...