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Biographie

Manthia Diawara est né au Mali en 1953, il passera une partie de son enfance en Guinée. Manthia Diawara est titulaire d’une chaire à l’Université de New York où il enseigne la littérature comparée et le cinéma. Manthia Diawara est le directeur de l’Institute of African Affairs, l’Université de New York ; fondateur et directeur de la publication Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, une revue bilingue qui publie des essais, nouvelles, critiques littéraires et artistiques sur l’Afrique et sa Diaspora.
En 1999, Manthia Daiwara a reçu le PHI BETA KAPPA Distinguished Visiting Professor Award ; en 2001 il a été nommé Professeur distingué de la School of Criticism (Cornell University). Il a été reçu comme Professeur invité dans diverses universités et`Grandes Écoles comme Princeton University, Harvard, Cornell, Stanford University et l’École des hautes Études en Sciences sociales (Paris).

Il a obtenu différentes subventions pour ses travaux. Entre autres, de la Ford Foundation, la Rockefeller Foundation, d’ARTE /ZDF et la Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts.

Tout au long de sa carrière, Manthia Diawara a publié de nombreux ouvrages, essais et films qui font référence.

Filmographie

• Sembene Ousmane : la création du Cinéma africain (1993, 54mn)

• Rouch à l’envers (1995, 51min)

• En quête d’Afrique (1999, 19min)

• Diaspora Conversation (2000, 47min)

• Bamako Sigi-kan (2002, 76 min)

• Conakry kas (2004, 83min). Documentary Film Golden Dhow, 1er Prix, Zanzibar International Film Festival 2004 ; Meilleur documentaire TV, 1er Prix Fiction & Documentaire, FESPACO 2005

• Who’s Afraid of Ngugi ?/ Qui a peur de Ngugi ? (84 min, 2006). Prix spécial du Jury, Zanzibar International Film Festival 2004

• Maison tropicale (2008, 58min)

• Édouard Glissant : un monde en relation (52 min, 2010)
  

BOOKS

• African Film : New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics (Prestel Éditions avril 2010).Version française en cours d’édition.

• We Won’t Budge (Basic Civitas Books 2003). Version française : Bamako, Paris New York (Présence Africaine, 2007)

• Black Aesthetics : Collected Essays (Forthcoming)

• Mali Kow : Un monde fait de tous les mondes (Catalogue d’exposition, collab. Jean Paul Colleyn & photograph. Catherine De Clippel). Indigènes Éditions/Parc La Villette, 2001

• In Search of Africa. (Harvard University Press, September 1998). Version française : En quête d’Afrique (Présence Africaine, 2001).

• African Cinema : Politics and Culture. Indiana University Press 1992

• Blackface (With photograph by David Levinthal, Arena Press, 1999)

• Black-American Cinema : Aesthetics & Spectatorship, (editor). Routlege, 1993

• Black British Cultural Studies : A Reader (Edited with Houston Baker, Jr., and Ruth Lindenborgh). University of Chicago Press, 1996.

• The Black Public Sphere (Edited with the Black Public Sphere Collective). University of Chicago Press, 1995

• Black Genius, (editor with Walter Mosley, Clyde Taylor, and Regina Austin). W.W. Norton, 1999.
  

JOURNALS EDITED

• “Black Independent Cinema” Special Issue of Wide Angle. (vol. 13, n°3, 4, 1991)

• “The Works of V.Y. Mudimbe” Special issue of Callaloo Journal (Vol. 14, No.4, Fall 1991)
  

ARTICLES

• “Radcliffe Bailey : One World Under the Groove”, High Museum, Atlanta, 2011

• “Conversation with Edouard Glissant,” in Black Modernities, Tate Liverpool, 2010.

• “Architecture as Colonial Discourse, Angela Ferreira : On Jean Prouvé’s Maisons Tropicales.” in Maison Tropicale. Angela Ferreira, catalogue of the exhibition, published by Instituto das Artes / Ministerio da Cultura, Lisboa, 2007, (p. 38-53).

• “David Hammons’ Sheep Lottery at Dak'Art 2004 : Reading Hammon's Art through Leopold Sedar Senghor's Négritude” in Recharting the Black Atlantic Modern Cultures, Local Communities, Global Connections (Routledge, USA, 2005).

• “Independent Cha Cha : The Art of Yinka Shonibare,” in Double Dutch : Yinka Shonibare, (NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 2004).

• “NYU’s Renaissance Man Contemplates the Fate of the African Expat : Manthia Diawara Won’t Budge,” by Lenora Todaro, in The Village Voice (July 9—15, 2003)

• “La Francophonie et l’édition,” in Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire (Vol.3/no.2, 2001)

• “The Sixties in Bamako : Malick Sidibe and James Brown,” The Andy Warhol Foundation For the Visual Arts : Paper Series on Arts, Culture and Society #11,2001. Reprinted in Everything But The Burden : What White People Are Taking From Black People, edited by Greg Tate (New York : Broadway Books, 2003) ; and in Malick Sidibe : Photographs (Gotteburg : Hasselblad Center/Steidl 2003)

• “The Reflexive Documentary Style in the Black Diaspora,”in A Short History. Edited by Okwui Enwezor (Munich : Villa Stuck Museum, 2001)

• “The Iconography of African Cinema” in Symbolic Narrative/African Cinema. Edited by June Givanni (London : BFI2000)

• “The ‘I’ Narrator in Black Diaspora Film,” Struggles for Representation (edited by Phyllis Klotman et. al., Indiana University Press 1999)  

• “The Film Industry in Senegal,” in The International Movie Industry. Edited by Gorham Kindem (Carbondale : Southern Illinois Press, 2000)

• “Cheri Samba,” in Artforum (November 1997)

• “Talk of the Town : Seydou Keita,” Artforum (February 1998)

• “Moving Company : The Johannesburg Biennale,” Artforum (March 1998)

• “Make it Funky : The art of David Hammons,” Artforum (May 1998)

• “Bob Thompson,” Artforum (December 1998)

• “New York and Ouagadougou : The Homes of African Cinema” in Sight and Sound (No. 11, 1993)

• “On Tracking World Cinema,” in Public Culture.

• “Whose African Cinema Is It Anyway ?” in Sight and Sound (No.2, 1993).

• “Out of Africa” in The Village Voice (April 18, 1995)

• “Report From FESPACO'91.” in Black Film Review, vol. 7, No.1 (1992)

• “FESPACO : An Evaluation,” in Third World Affairs 1986

• “The African Film Industry : The Competition for Distribution Monopoly.” in West Africa No.3572 (1986)

• “Technological Paternalism : Subsaharan African Film Production,” in Jump-Cut No. 32 (1987)

• “Oral Literature and African Film : Narratology in Wend Kuuni,” in Presence Africaine No. 142 (1987) Reprinted in Questions of Third Cinema, eds. Jim Pines and Paul Willemen, London : British Film Institute, 1989)

• “New Perspectives in African Cinema : Interview with Cheick Oumar Sissoko, with an Introduction,” co-authored with Elizabeth Robinson, in Film Quarterly, vol. XLI No. 2 (Winter 1987‑88)

• “Le Spectateur noir face au cinéma dominant : tours et détours de l'identification,” in CinemAction, (Cerf, 1987)

• “Popular Culture and Oral Traditions in African Film,” in Film Quarterly, vol. XLI, No. 3 (Spring 1988) ; reprinted in Film Quarterly : Forty Years , A Selection, edited by Brian Anderson and Ann Martin ; Univer. of California Press, 1999.

• “Film in Anglophone Africa : A Brief Survey,” in Blackframes : Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema, eds. Mbye Cham and Claire Andrade-Watkins, Cambridge : Celebration of Black Cinema/The MIT Press, 1988.

• “The Other('s) Archivist,” in Diacritics vol. 18, No. 1, (Spring, 1988)

• “Black Spectatorship : Problems of Identification and Resistance,” in Screen, vol. 29, No. 4, 1988. A version of this essay was published in CinemAction (Cerf, 1987). This essay has also been reprinted widely in film anthologies.

• “Souleymane Cisse's Light on Africa,” in Black Film Review vol. 4 No 4, 1988.

• “Ganja and Hess,” co-authored with Phyllis Klotman. In Jump-Cut. No. 34, 1990

• “African Cinema Today,” in Framework No.37, 1990 ; translated in Japanese and published in Cinema New Wave From Africa, edited by Kenji Shiraishi, Tokyo, 1989.

• “Reading Africa Through Foucault : V.Y. Mudimbe's Re-affirmation of the Subject.” In October No. 55 (1991). A shorter version appeared in Quest : Philosophical Discussions, vol. IV, No. 1, 1990.

• “Englishness and Blackness : Cricket as Discourse on Colonialism.” in Callaloo, vol. 13, Number 4, 1991.

• “Black British Cinema : Spectatorship and Identity Formation in Territories.” in Public Culture, Summer 1990.

• “The Nature of Mother in Dreaming Rivers.” in Black American Literature Forum. vol. 25, No.2 Summer 1991

• “The Absent One : The Black Imaginary and the Avant Garde in Looking For Langston,” in Wide Angle vol. 13, nos. 3 and 4 (1991).

• “Canonizing Soundiata in Mande Literature : Toward a Sociology of Narrative Elements,” in Social Text 31/32 (1992.

• “Interviewed by V.Y. Mudimbe on the Predicament of Negritude and Francophonie.” in The Surreptitious Speech, ed. V.Y. Mudimbe. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992.

• “Black Studies, Cultural Studies : Performative Acts,” Afterimage, October, 1992.

• “Noir by Noirs : Toward a New Realism in Black film,” in African American Review, vol. 27, No.4 (1994), also in Joan Copsec (editor) Shades of Noir, London : Verso Press (1993).

• “Malcolm X and The Black Public Sphere : Conversionists versus Culturalist,” in Public Culture vol. 7 No. 1, 1994

SHORT STORIES

• “And the Gods Have Not Avenged Us,” in UFAHAMU, 1985.

• “The Chronicle of Independence,” in Issues : A Journal of Opinion, No. 15, 1987.

• “Rêve d’en France” in Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire (Vol. 2, No.3, 2000)
  

TRANSLATIONS AND REVIEWS

• The Garbage Boys (English subtitles to Nyamanton, a film by Cheick Oumar Sissoko), 1987

• “The tales of African Cinema,” (“Le Dit du cinema Africain” by Amadou Ampate Ba,” in Discourse, vol. 11, No. 2 (Spring‑Summer 1989).

• The Tall Black Woman (English subtitles to Finzan, a film by Cheick Oumar Sissoko), 1989.

• Fire ! (English subtitles to Ta Dona, a film by Adama Drabo) 1991.

Reviews

• “Sembene's Cinema in Perspective,” a review of The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene by Françoise Pfaff, in Framework 1987.

• “Images of Children,” a review Nyamanton by Cheick Oumar Sissoko, in West Africa No. 3599 (1986).

• “The Social Cinema of Jean Renoir,” a review of the book of the same title by Christopher Faulkner, The Society of Visual Anthropology News Letter, vol. 4, No. 1, 1988.

• “Twenty‑Five African Filmmakers,” a review of Fran╟oise Pfaff's Twenty‑Five African Filmmakers, in Film Quarterly, vol. XLII, No. 3 ( Spring 1989).

• “Good News Bad News : Review of the 1989 African Studies Association Meeting” in West Africa No. 3774, (18‑24 December), 1989

• “Cinema Engage,” by Jonathan Buschbaum, in Society For Visual Anthropology Newsletter, vol. 5, No.1 (Spring 1989).

• “Finzan : A Call to Rebellion” in Library of African Cinema, a Project of California Newsreel, 1991

• “Seeing Brightness,” in Library of African Film, a Project of California Newsreel, 1991

• “Zan Boko : The Place Where The Past Lies Buried,” in Library of African Film, a Project of California Newsreel, 1991

• “Idrissa Ouedraogo's Tilai in Black Film Review, vol. 6, No 3, 1991

• “Djibril Diop Mambety's Touki Bouki in Black Film Review, vol. 6, No. 3, 1991

• “Ousmane Sembene's Camp de Thiaroye” in Black Film Review, vol. 6, No. 3, 1991

• “Sembene Ousmane : The Pertual Rebel,” in The Village Voice (April, 1993)
  

SCHOLARLY STUDIES AND SELECTED REVIEWS OF DIAWARA’S WORK

• Lenora Todaro, “Manthia Diawara Won't Budge : NYU's Renaissance Man Contemplates the Fate of the African Expat” (July 8th, 2003)

• Ross Posnock “The Dream of Deracination : The Uses of Cosmopolitanism, (American Literature History, 2000)

• Suzanne MacRae, “Freedom and Redemption,” Worldview (vol.13 no.1, Winter 2000)

• Adebayo Williams, “The Postcolony as Trope : Searching for a Lost Continent in a Borderless World.” Research in African Literature (Vol 31, N° 2 Summer 2000)

• Landeg White, “The Dignity of Merchants,” London Review of Books (Aug. 10, 2000)

• Ken Harrow, “Manthia Diawara’s Rouch in Reverse : An Interstitial Perspective,” Critical Arts : A Journal of Cultural Studies (13/1, 1999)

• Mervyn Claxton, “Tradition, Modernity and Cultural Identity in Africa : In Search of Africa” Présence Africaine (Fall, 1999)

• Abdul Abdi, “History Lost in Tragedy,” Washington Times, (January 30, 1999)

• Herb Boyd, “Land of his Fathers,” Washington Post, Book World, (Sunday, January 24, 1999)

• Emmanuel Akyeampong, “A Changed African Revisits a Changed Africa,” The Boston Globe (January, 17, 1999)

• Amitava Kumar, “World Literature : A New Name for Post-Colonial Studies in the Next Century,” College Literature, (vol. 26/3, 1999)

• Charles Mudede, “In Search Of Africa,” Village Voice Literary, Supplement (December 1998)

• Sabine Cessou, “A la recherche de l’Afrique,” L’Autre Afrique (November 18-24, 1998)

• Stan Persky, “Search For a Schoolmate Pits an Abstract Against Reality” The Vancouver Sun (Oct. 30, 1998)

• Silvia Kolbowski, “Homeboy Cosmopolitan : An Interview” in October 83, (Winter, 1998)

• Michael M. Fischer, “Raising Questions About Rouch,” American Anthropologist, (Vol. 99, no.1, 1997)