Sensational Movies

Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-520-28768-6
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 149 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 569 g

Reihe: The Anthropology of Christianity

Tracing the rise and development of the Ghanaian video film industry between 1985 and 2010, Sensational Movies examines video movies as seismographic devices recording a culture and society in turmoil. This book captures the dynamic process of popular filmmaking in Ghana as a new medium for the imagination and tracks the interlacing of the medium’s technological, economic, social, cultural, and religious aspects. Stepping into the void left by the defunct state film industry, video movies negotiate the imaginaries deployed by state cinema on the one hand and Christianity on the other.

Birgit Meyer analyzes Ghanaian video as a powerful, sensational form. Colliding with the state film industry’s representations of culture, these movies are indebted to religious notions of divination and revelation. Exploring the format of “film as revelation,” Meyer unpacks the affinity between cinematic and popular Christian modes of looking and showcases the transgressive potential haunting figurations of the occult. In this brilliant study, Meyer offers a deep, conceptually innovative analysis of the role of visual culture within the politics and aesthetics of religious world making.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Meyer, Birgit

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Filmindustrie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Film, Video, Foto
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of IllustrationsPrefaceAbbreviationsIntroduction   1   •     The Video Film Industry 2   •     Accra, Visions of the City  3   •     Moving Pictures and Lived Experience4   •     Film as Revelation 5   •     Picturing the Occult6   •     Animation 7   •     Mediating Traditional CultureEpilogue Notes ReferencesFilmographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

BirgitMeyer is a cultural anthropologist and Professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She is Vice-Chair of the International African Institute and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.