African Studies Seminar: The arts of oil - dis/enchantment and popular culture in Port Harcourt

This research engages with the emerging field of ‘oil culture’ or ‘petro-culture’ studies. It aims to make visible the conspicuously invisible role of oil in everyday life and culture, and to do so by examining the cultural history of Port Harcourt - a symbol and a catalyst of Nigeria’s incorporation into the global economy of energy capitalism. It examines how the popular arts reflect a dialectic of enchantment and disenchantment with the Nigerian petro-state. In what ways do the popular arts celebrate its profits and politics, and critique its inequalities and injustices? Is the popular culture of oil a protest culture? Can we demonstrate the role of political ecology on cultural creativity in local arts and in the diaspora?

Download the Winter 2019 programme here. 

All welcome.

This seminar series is convened by the African Studies Research Centre/IAS:

• Dr. Hélène Neveu Kringelbach (h.neveu@ucl.ac.uk)
• Prof. Megan Vaughan (megan.vaughan@ucl.ac.uk)
• Dr. Keren Weitzberg (k.weitzberg@ucl.ac.uk)

Image: Johnson Uwadinma, Breaking News, 2017