Welcome to a special African media-themed week from In Media Res. We realize that Africa is a very large and diverse space and that, in comparison, this themed-week is both limited in scope and overreaching in its ambitions, but given the dearth of scholarly materials dealing with media from and about this part of the world – particularly online – our aim was to be as inclusive as possible. Please feel free to respond to the contributors’ comments. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org This week’s In Media Res line-up: Monday, April 7, 2008 – Olivier Tchouaffe (University of Texas at Austin) presents: “Bamako” Tuesday, April 8, 2008 – Brian Larkin (Barnard College) presents: "Projecting Nigeria” Wednesday, April 9, 2008 – Jude Akudinobi (University of California, Santa Barbara) presents: "Charade, Masquerade and Hollywood’s Africa” Thursday, April 10, 2008 – Ibrahim Amidou (University of Cincinnati) presents: "Generational Clashes in the Retold Epic Story of “Kéita! The Heritage of the Griot” (1995) by Dani Kouyaté” Friday, April 11, 2008 – Sada Niang (University of Victoria) presents: "Colonial migrations in Sembene's La noire de...” Please check out these wonderful contributions and offer your thoughts via a comment. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org In Media Res is envisioned as an experiment in just one sort of collaborative, multi-modal scholarship that MediaCommons will aim to foster. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media in a manner closer to how we typically experience mediated texts. Each day, a different media scholar will present a 30-second to 3-minute clip accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response. The goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship through clips chosen for either their typicality or a-typicality in demonstrating narrative strategies, genre formulations, aesthetic choices, representational practices, institutional approaches, fan engagements, etc. Best, Avi Santo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Avi Santo, Ph.D. Assistant Professor 3014 Batten Arts & Letters (BAL) Department of Communication and Theatre Arts Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia 23529 (757) 683-6971 [log in to unmask] Co-Coordinating Editor: MediaCommons: A Digital Scholarly Network http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org Co-Creator: Flow: Television and Media Culture http://www.flowtv.org _________________________________________________________________ If you like crossword puzzles, then you'll love Flexicon, a game which combines four overlapping crossword puzzles into one! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/208 ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html