John C. McCall - Anthropology Faculty

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Anthropology Faculty

John C. McCall

Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies

Department of Anthropology
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4502

Contact:
Faner Hall 3543
(618) 453-5010
jmccall@siu.edu

Research Interests

Courses

Areas and Specialties

African Film & Video
African Popular Culture
African Music, Dance, & Art
The Global Informal Market
Ethnography, Nigeria, Igbo

Current Research Projects

Since 2000, I've been doing research on the Nigerian video movie industry or: "Nollywood."

I do ethnographic research on media production and consumption in Nigeria and in Africa in general. I am particularly intrigued by the informal networks of artists, artisans, and traders that produce and distribute video movies in Africa.

The new commercial digital media make it possible for the first time for Africans to produce and distribute their own content without foreign funding or dependance on the infrastructures of transnational media corporations. I am currently in the final stages of writing a book: The Nollywood Effect: How Nigeria's Informal Movie Industry is Reinventing Africa

Research for this project had been funded by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and SIUC's Office of Research Development and Administration.

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Spring Semester 2009

UHON 351
Africa in African Cinema
University Honors Program

Fall Semester 2010 (updated syllabi forthcoming)

ANTH 310A
Peoples and Cultures of Africa
(Also: ANTH 470A & BAS 310A)

ANTH 500E
History of Anthropology
(Required Graduate Core Course)

Research Websites
	G. I. Jones Archive Sponsored by: Centre of African Studies University of Cambridge
	Other Africas Exhibit Co-curated with Christey Carwile, 2000 University Museum, SIUC
	Ohafia d'ike n'agha An ethnographic tribute to Ndi Ohafia.

Selected publications

Date/Title	Download
2007. "The Pan-Africanism We Have: Nollywood's Invention of Africa." Special Edition of Film International (FilmInt.). Onookome Okome (ed.). Issue 28, 5(4): 92-97.
2006. "Nollywood Shows the Way." The Africa Report. (Published by Jeune Afrique) No. 3. July 3: 120-124.
2005. "Nollywood Confidential: the unlikely rise of Nigerian video film." Fader. 26:116-132. (Reprint)
2004. "Juju and Justice at the Movies: Vigilantes in Nigerian Popular Videos." African Studies Review. 47(3): 51-67.
2004. "Nollywood Confidential: the unlikely rise of Nigerian video film." Transition Magazine. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. 95: 98-109.
2004. "Igbo Shamanism." In Encyclopedia of Shamanism, Mariko N. Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridmann (eds.). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 925-928.
2002. "Madness, Money, and Movies: Watching Nigerian Popular Videos with a Native Doctor's Guidance." Africa Today. 49(3): 78-94.
2001 "Introduction." In Trading States of the Oil Rivers. By G. I. Jones. Murray Last (series Ed.) Classics in African Anthropology Series. Hamburg: LIT with the International African Institute. xi-xix.
2000. Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1999. "Structure, Agency and the Locus of the Social: Why Post-Structural Theory is Good for Archaeology." In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, John Robb (ed.), Center for Archaeological Investigations, SIUC. Occasional Paper No. 26: 16-20.
1998. "The Representation of African Music in Early Writings." In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music,Vol. I: Africa. Ruth Stone (ed.), New York: Garland Publishing. 74-99.
1996. "Portrait of a Brave Woman." American Anthropologist. 98(1): 127-136.
1996. "Motopark Beggars." Anthropology and Humanism. 21(1): 92-95.
1996. "Discovery as a Research Strategy." Anthropology Newsletter. 37(2): 44 & 42.
1995. "Rethinking Ancestors in Africa." Africa. (Journal of the International African Institute.) 65(2): 256-270.
1995. "African Social Organization." In Africa, 3rd ed. Martin, Phyllis and Patrick O'Meara (eds.), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 175-189.
1993. "Making Peace with Agwu." Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly. 18(2): 56-66.
1993. "Dancing the Past: Experiencing Historical Knowledge in Ohafia, Nigeria. "Passages: A Chronicle of the Humanities (Northwestern University). 6: 8-9.
1993. "Early Accounts of the Drum in Africa." In Drums: The Heartbeat of Africa. E.A. Dagan (ed.), Montreal: Galerie Amrad African Arts (44-47.)