Title: Songs, Stories, Action: The socio-historical aesthetics of audience film reception in East Africa
Date and Time: Friday, May 25, 2018, 3:00 pm
Location: PSYCH 1902
The talk is co-sponsored by Film & Media Studies, History, and the IHC African Studies Research Focus Group and is part of the Film and Media Studies Colloquium Series

Description: Drawing from her recently published book, Reel Pleasures, in this talk Laura Fair discusses both the methods and findings of her research on audience film preferences in colonial and post-colonial Zanzibar and Tanzania. Focusing on the aesthetic elements revered by local fans, Fair illuminates how local exhibitors catered to their patrons’ tastes and examines why a vibrant black market for cinema tickets burgeoned for more than 30 years.

Bio: Laura Fair is a historian of East African urban social, cultural and gender history.  Her publications include Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community and Identity in Post-abolition Urban Zanzibar, Historia ya Jamii na Nyimbo za Siti binti Saad and ‘Drive-in Socialism: Debating Modernities and Development in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,’ The American Historical Review 118, 4 (2013).