Trash: African Cinema from Below

Highlighting what is melodramatic, flashy, low, and gritty in the characters, images, and plots of African cinema, Kenneth W. Harrow uses trash as the unlikely metaphor to show how these films have depicted the globalized world. Rather than focusing on topics such as national liberation and postcolonialism, he employs the disruptive notion of trash to propose a destabilizing aesthetics of African cinema. Harrow argues that the spread of commodity capitalism has bred a culture of materiality and waste that now pervades African film. He posits that a view from below permits a way to understand the tropes of trash present in African cinematic imagery.

Author: Kenneth W. Harrow
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 04/09/2013
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780253007513

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2014

About the Author

Kenneth W. Harrow is Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State University. He is author of Postcolonial African Cinema: From Political Engagement to Postmodernism (IUP, 2007).