Jess: [african writing and new media]

22.10.08

[african writing and new media]

(live blogged)

2 presentations on african new media writing

first up - Nur Yaryare of the Sommali Afro European Media Project

SAEMP an online community TV station based in Leicester
currently piloting the broadcasting of a number of prerecorded channels
programmes that are presented range in social health, education, faith, local events, news etc...
see www.saemp.org.uk
tackles image of arabs are terrorists with the online site and the paper newsletter
see www.saemp.org.uk/videos.php for videos and podcasts

2nd up - Anieti Isong, current phd student with Prof. Sue Thomas as supervisor. He is a novelist an

d his first book is to be published this year

see youtube video on kenya - big differences since the use of mobile phones (see kenya's mobile revolution - part 1)
huge technological leaps happening in kenya including paying for items using mobile 'phones - "using phones as wallets"
what is african writing -goes back to Chinua Achebe who published Things Fall Apart in 1958, father of modern african literature
there was the Heinemann African Writers series started in 1962
then wole soyinka awarded nobel prize in 1986
emerging african writers liks helon habila, chimamanda, helen oyeyemi, pettina gappah, mary watson, toly ogunlesi, brian chikwava, afolabi, binyavanga wainaina, monica nyeko, chika unigwe
these writers are willing to experiment: homosexuality, crime, take risks
some journals - eclectica, open wide, author-me, story south, g21, in posse review
but now african online journals - african writing online, farafina, african writers, new gong, kwani, sentinel, chimurenga
key issues: how has the internet influed writing and what do the readers make of this?
the reach for online stories is global - everywhere there is an internet connection
see great video poem about nigerian going back home after studying in england - cifeozo, "homecoming"
blogs as form of storytelling - Diary of a Randy Man: "I woke up in the middle of the night to discover the duvet on the floor. she was lying on her side facing me, her nightie had opened..."
Confusednaijagirl - deals with child abuse

Labels: africa, creative, digital literacy, new media, south africa, transdisciplinary, transliteracy, writing

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About Me

Name: Jess

Location: Edmonton, Canada

Update: Winter Term: *** Lecturing at Grant MacEwan University on several topics including journalism, professional writing, e-learning, critical theory, analysis & argument and communications. As always, still interested in the role of new media in education.

currently I'm...

still thinking about online narratives. Well, I've spent the past few years thinking about it but now I'm going in a slightly different direction. I'm thinking about wiki fictions, blog stories, youtube stories and facebook storytelling. I guess it's narratives 2.0? But I'm also researching transdisciplinarity in an academic context and editing two issues of the IOCT journal before steering the emergence of a fully-peer-reviewed journal (tentatively) titled: Transdisciplinary Studies in Creative Technologies. I'm running the Digital Cultures module for the IOCT Master's, giving guest lectures for the Creative Writing and New Media Master's as well as part-time lecturing on new media and digital lit. I'm involved with the Narrative Laboratory project and this year's focus in on mapping social networking. I also contribute as an author to Transliteracy.com, a collaboratively written blog. I'm very interested in how the online environment and its particular affordances are affecting education. To that end I'm involved in a project linking the Inanimate Alice stories to digital literacy. Want to be involved? Check this out.