 | Black and White: Cinema, politics and the arts in Zimbabwe Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Humanities; Development Studies Environment Social Work Urban Studies; Mental Health; Cultural Studies; Media & Film Studies; Cultural Studies; Jung & Analytical Psychology; Race & Ethnicity; African Cultural Studies; Post Colonial Discourse; Third World Studies; Film Studies; Media & Communications; In Black and White Agnieszka Piotrowska presents a unique insight into the contemporary arts scene in Zimbabwe - an area that has received very limited coverage in research and the media. The book combines theory with literature, film, politics and culture and takes a psychosocial and psychoanalytic perspective to achieve a truly interdisciplinary analysis. Piotrowska focuses in particular on the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) as well as the cinema, featuring the work of Rumbi Katedza and Joe Njagu. Her personal experience of time spent in Harare, working in collaborative relationships with Zimbabwean artists and filmmakers, informs the book throughout. It features examples of their creative work on the ground and examines the impact it has had on the community and the local media. Piotrowska uses her experiences to analyse concepts of trauma and post-colonialism in Zimbabwe and interrogates her position as a stranger there, questioning patriarchal notions of belonging and authority. Black and White also presents a different perspective on convergences in the work of Doris Lessing and iconic Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera, and how it might be relevant to contemporary race relations. Black and White will be intriguing reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychotherapeutically engaged scholars, film makers, academics and students of post-colonial studies, film studies, cultural studies, psychosocial studies and applied philosophy. Dr Agnieszka Piotrowska is an acclaimed theorist and an award winning documentary filmmaker, who uses psychoanalysis and philosophy alongside her creative practice research. Her current work, both practice and theory, focuses on post-colonial relationships in Zimbabwe and includes an internationally acclaimed documentary film, Lovers in Time or How We Didn't Get Arrested in Harare . She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film , editor of Embodied Encounters: New Approaches to Psychoanalysis and Cinema , and co-editor of Psychoanalysis and the Unrepresentable, all published by Routledge. She is a Reader in Film Theory and Practice at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. |
