Research Guides: FREN 5170: Francophone African Theater and Performance (Valente Quinn): Home

Ask A Librarian

Make an appointment

Chat, Call, Text

Email: libraries@colorado.edu

Romance Languages Librarian

Kathia Ibacache

Email Me

Contact:

Norlin
Research Suite
E250E

Home

Welcome

Welcome to the research session for your FREN 5170 Francophone African Theater and Performance course. My name is Kathia Ibacache, and I am the Romance Languages Librarian and your point of contact for any help you might need in your research process. You will have to complete a research paper by the end of the semester; therefore, this guide will provide information about research methodologies, resources available through databases and other materials at CU-Boulder, and open access (OA) resources available on the Internet. I aim to help you gain familiarity with the sites and resources available to you to complete your research project for this class. The topics covered should also help you with your thesis work.

Research Process

Research Topic

Your topic should facilitate a critical approach that integrates some of the theories covered in your course.

Your research topic may be born through different channels:

Read your syllabus carefully and pay attention to a topic covered in class that you found interesting and that you do not know much about it.
- You may choose a topic that is related to the central theme of the course and is of interest to you.
Expand on a subject that is highlighted in one of the theatrical performances you watched and you found relevant.
Cover a topic (from your own optic) that was suggested in one of the books or articles you read.
Browse online media to gather topic ideas.
Browse background sources to gather topic ideas.

VERY NORMAL: Sometimes topics change as you move forward in your research process.

Research Question

Your research question will be related to your topic. This question usually answers a matter that has not been covered by previous scholarship.

Developing Research Questions: Your Purpose

Consider where your questions will lead you. Will your questions:

Compare and contrast
- How is play X alike or different from play Y?
- How is dramatist X's contribution different from dramatist Y's?
- How is the same topic covered by different francophone dramatists?
Associate your topic with another
- How did a topic happen in relation to another topic?
Interpret the state of your topic
- Explain the significance of X and how you can measure this significance
Explore possibilities or outcomes
- What are the consequences of X
- How does X affect Y
Lead to a call for action or change
- What are the recommendations you may offer to the issue presented in your paper?
Argue for a particular stance
- Present opposing views and argue in favor or against a view

Exercise: Your Research Topic

See Strategy: Formulating Questions for more information.

Background Information

Background sources are really helpful at the beginning stages of your research process. These sources will give us ideas for research topics and keywords and even provide further information that may be useful.

My sample topic "Cameroonian Dramatists: Theatrical Expression through Comedy and Ritual Theatre" was born out of an article I read in Britannica.

Recommended Background Sources

Encyclopaedia Universalis
Digital reference encyclopedia of the French-speaking world.
ARTFL Encyclopédie
First edition of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopdie with Panckoucke's 4-volume Supplment l'Encyclopdie
Dictionnaires d'autrefois
French dictionaries from 17th-19th centuries.

Wikipédia
Wikisource
Ted Talks
Brookings Institute
Find reports, podcasts, TechStreams, and interactive materials related to Africa and Francophone countries.
NYT Room for Debate

Keywords and Related Terms

Keywords and related terms are those words and phrases that are related to the topic of your research. These terms may be synonymous with a word or a related term. We use keywords to enhance our searches and gather as much scholarship as we can in relation to a topic.

Look at the example below and see how these words are related to my topic:

Example

My topic: Cameroonian Dramatists: Theatrical Expression through Comedy and Ritual Theatre

Keywords:	Related terms
Cameroon
University	higher education
theatre	francophone theater - plays - playwright
Guillaume Oyono-Mbia	dramatist; bilingual writer
Comedies	Trois prétendants…un mari (1962); Le Train spécial de son excellence (1978); Notre fille ne see mariera pas! (1969)
	Themes: youth versus adult; modernity versus tradition
	analysis: character, staging, dialogue, narrative, performance (on stage or radio)
Côte d’Ivoire	theatre companies: Atelier Théâtre Attoungblan; Sekedoua Company
Nicole Wéré-Wéré Liking	Ki-Yi Mbock Theatre (Liking formed this group in Côte d’Ivoire) - "ritual theatre"
	La puissance de Um (1979) and Une nouvelle terre (1980)
	African ritual theatre: used music and dance
	analysis: character, staging, dialogue, narrative, performance

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators help you connect, expand or exclude your searches.

Examples:

Guillaume Oyono-Mbia AND independence movements

Guillaume Oyono-Mbia AND bilingualism

Anne Ubersfeld AND Lire le théâtre AND semiotics

Gustave Akakpo AND drama OR "Théâtre togolais de langue française"

"post-colonial dramatists" OR "Togolese playwrights" AND Gustave Akapko NOT Kangni Alemdjrodo

Slimane Benaïssa AND theatre AND exile AND trauma OR algerian people

Resources Available

Databases Available at CU-Boulder

CAIRN Journals
Journals spanning a range of subjects, published in French.
European Colonialism Early 20th Century: French Colonialism Africa: Algeria To Madagascar, 1910-1930 (Gale)
This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities.
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance (EBSCO)
Resources on all aspects of theatre and the performing arts.
JSTOR
Digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database (ProQuest)
From 1864 to current.
PERSEE
French language journal articles on a variety of social and human science topics.
Project Muse
Collection of humanities and social sciences journals.

Newspapers Avaliable at CU-Boulder

Access World News Research Collection (NewsBank)
Online access to major national and international newspapers, as well as local and regional titles. Also includes newswires, blogs, web-only content, videos, journals, magazines, transcripts and more.
Factiva
Most comprehensive source of worldwide local, regional, national, and international newspapers. In addition, you can find U.S. and international company profiles and industry reports.
Gallica Periodicals
The French National Library catalog; also includes digitized versions of newspapers, manuscripts and more.

OA Resources

Africa Francophone
A website produced by Lehman College, CUNY with a plethora of links to Francophone Africa (as well as other Africana) resources
African Journals Online
African Journals OnLine (AJOL) is the world's largest and preeminent platform of African-published scholarly journals. AJOL is a Non-Profit Organisation that (since 1998) works to increase global & continental online access, awareness, quality & use of African-published, peer-reviewed research.
African Online Digital Library
AODL is an open-access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world.
Afro Baromoter
Afrobarometer, a research project that can be traced back to 1993, is funded by the Center for Democratic Development (Ghana), the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, and the Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy (Benin). Afrobarometer chronicles a series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, markets, and civil society in Africa. Francophone Africa countries included are Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cape Verde, Madagascar, Mali, and Senegal.
Érudit
Erudit is the largest disseminator of French-language resources in North America offering access to francophone publications in the social sciences and humanities including scholarly and cultural journals, books, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations and research documents and data.
Literature and Culture of Francophone Africa and the Diaspora
Brown University produces this guide to online research resources of the literature and culture (dance, art, music, cinema, theater, etc.) of Francophone Africa and the Diaspora. The website is available in both French and English.

Project Muse Open Access Ebooks
Access to freely available ebooks from Project MUSE.

Books of Interest

New Francophone African and Caribbean Theatres by John Conteh-Morgan; Dominic Thomas (As told to)
ISBN: 9780253004581
Publication Date: 2010-08-03
John Conteh-Morgan explores the multiple ways in which African and Caribbean theatres have combined aesthetic, ceremonial, experimental, and avant-garde practices in order to achieve sharp critiques of the nationalist and postnationalist state and to elucidate the concerns of the francophone world. More recent changes have introduced a transnational dimension, replacing concerns with national and ethnic solidarity in favor of irony and self-reflexivity. New Francophone African and Caribbean Theatres places these theatres at the heart of contemporary debates on global cultural and political practices and offers a more finely tuned understanding of performance in diverse diasporic networks.
A History of Theatre in Africa by Martin Banham (Editor)
ISBN: 9780521808132
Publication Date: 2004-05-13
This book aims to offer a broad history of theatre in Africa. The roots of African theatre are ancient and complex and lie in areas of community festival, seasonal rhythm and religious ritual, as well as in the work of popular entertainers and storytellers. Since the 1950s, in a movement that has paralleled the political emancipation of so much of the continent, there has also grown a theatre that comments back from the colonized world to the world of the colonists and explores its own cultural, political and linguistic identity. A History of Theatre in Africa offers a comprehensive, yet accessible, account of this long and varied chronicle, written by a team of scholars in the field. Chapters include an examination of the concepts of 'history' and 'theatre'; North Africa; Francophone theatre; Anglophone West Africa; East Africa; Southern Africa; Lusophone African theatre; Mauritius and Reunion; and the African diaspora.

Faces of African independence: three plays
Subjects: Africa -- History -- Autonomy and independence movements -- Drama., African drama (French) -- Translations into English., Shaka, -- Zulu Chief, -- 1787?-1828 -- Drama., Zulu (African people) -- Drama.

Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka? by Adewale Maja-Pearce
Call Number: https://tinyurl.com/yjpplnc5
ISBN: 9780435909772
Publication Date: 1991-08-05
Adewale Maja-Pearce analyzes contemporary African politics and society with absolute candor in these essays. Drawing on first-hand observations, and on conversations with journalists, intellectuals, students, artists, taxi drivers, and businessmen, he exposes the abuse of human rights by African governments, and celebrates the courage of those individuals who stand up to tyranny.
Modern African Drama by Biodun Jeyifo
ISBN: 9780393975291
Publication Date: 2002-04-11
"Backgrounds and Criticism" presents documents on modern African drama generally and on the assembled texts and authors specifically, including little-known materials.? Featured are essays on Tawfik al-Hakim, Kateb Yacine, Athol Fugard, Wole Soyinka, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Femi Osofisan. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.
Wole Soyinka by Biodun Jeyifo; Abiola Irele (Contribution by)
ISBN: 9780521394864
Publication Date: 2003-11-13
Biodun Jeyifo examines the connections between the innovative and influential writings of Wole Soyinka and his radical political activism. Jeyifo carries out detailed analyses of Soyinka's most ambitious works, relating them to the controversies generated by Soyinka's use of literature and theatre for radical political purposes. He gives a fascinating account of the profound but paradoxical affinities and misgivings Soyinka has felt about the significance of the avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Jeyifo also explores Soyinka's works with regard to the impact on his artistic sensibilities of the pervasiveness of representational ambiguity and linguistic exuberance in Yoruba culture. The analyses and evaluations of this study are presented in the context of Soyinka's sustained engagement with the violence of collective experience in post-independence, postcolonial Africa and the developing world. No existing study of Soyinka's works and career has attempted such a systematic investigation of their complex relationship to politics.
Signs of Dissent by Dawn Fulton
ISBN: 9780813927145
Publication Date: 2008-05-15
Maryse Condé is a Guadeloupean writer and critic whose work has challenged the categories of race, language, gender, and geography that inform contemporary literary and critical debates. In Signs of Dissent, the first full-length study in English on Condé, Dawn Fulton situates this award-winning author's work in the context of current theories of cultural identity in order to foreground Condé's unique contributions to these discussions. Staging a dialogue between Condé's novels and the field of postcolonial studies, Fulton argues that Condé enacts a strategy of "critical incorporations" in her fiction, imitating and transforming many of the prevailing narratives of postcolonial theory so as to explore their theoretical and conceptual limits. By rejecting the facile classification of her work as "Caribbean," "African," or "feminist," Condé has gained a reputation as an iconoclast. But Fulton proposes that behind this public image of provocation lies an incisive reflection on the burdens of representation imposed on the non-Western writer, and that Condé's novels expose the ways in which postcolonial criticism can be complicit in constructing such burdens even as it questions them. Signs of Dissent offers one of the most comprehensive assessments of Condé's literary production to date, illuminating its exceptional role in shaping a dialogue between francophone studies and the English-dominated field of postcolonialism.
Staging Creolization by Emily Sahakian
ISBN: 9780813940076
Publication Date: 2017-07-17
In Staging Creolization, Emily Sahakian examines seven plays by Ina Césaire, Maryse Condé, Gerty Dambury, and Simone Schwarz-Bart that premiered in the French Caribbean or in France in the 1980s and 1990s and soon thereafter traveled to the United States. Sahakian argues that these late-twentieth-century plays by French Caribbean women writers dramatize and enact creolization--the process of cultural transformation through mixing and conflict that occurred in the context of the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Sahakian here theorizes creolization as a performance-based process, dramatized by French Caribbean women's plays and enacted through their international production and reception histories. The author contends that the syncretism of the plays is not a static, fixed creole aesthetics but rather a dynamic process of creolization in motion, informed by history and based in the African-derived principle that performance is a space of creativity and transformation that connects past, present, and future.
Bolando: roi des Gitans by Gustave Akakpo
Call Number: PQ3989.A39 B65 2018, Norlin Library--Stacks
ISBN: 9782807101753
Publication Date: 2018
Africa, West -- Social conditions -- Drama., Subject: Drama., Industrialists -- Africa, West -- Drama., Industrialists., Railroads -- Africa, West -- Drama., Railroads., Social conditions., West Africa.
Seven Plays of Koffi Kwahulé by Judith G. Miller; Chantal Bilodeau (Translator)
ISBN: 9780472073498
Publication Date: 2017-05-31
The work of renowned Ivoirian playwright Koffi Kwahulé has been translated into some 15 languages and is performed regularly throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas. For the first time, Seven Plays of Koffi Kwahulé: In and Out of Africa makes available to an Anglophone audience some of the best and most representative plays by one of Francophone Africa's most accomplished living playwrights. Kwahulé's theater delves into both the horror of civil war in Africa and the diasporic experience of peoples of African origin living in Europe and the "New World." From the split consciousness of the protagonist and rape victim in Jaz to the careless buffoonery of mercenaries in Brewery, Kwahulé's characters speak in riffs and refrains that resonate with the improvisational pulse of jazz music. He confronts us with a violent world that represents the damage done to Africa and asks us, through exaggeration and surreal touches, to examine the reality of an ever-expanding network of global migrants. His plays speak to the contemporary state of humanity, suffering from exile, poverty, capitalist greed, collusion, and fear of "the other"--however that "other" gets defined. Judith G. Miller's introductory essay situates Kwahulé among his postcolonial contemporaries. Short introductory essays to each play, accompanied by production photos, contextualize possible approaches to Kwahulé's often enigmatic work. Anglophone theater scholars and theater professionals eager to engage with contemporary theater beyond their borders, particularly in terms of what so-called minority theater artists from other countries are creating, will welcome this indispensable collection. Students and scholars of African studies and of global French studies will also find this work intriguing and challenging.
Debout un pied: théâtre by Sufo Sufo
Call Number: PQ3989.3.S84 D43 2018, Norlin Library--Stacks
ISBN: 9782847051735
Publication Date: 2018
Subjects:
Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Drama., Africa., Africans -- Europe -- Drama., Africans., Cameroonian drama (French), Drama., Emigration and immigration., Europe., Illegal aliens -- Europe -- Drama., Illegal aliens., Refugees -- Drama., Refugees., Undocumented immigrants.
Le Théâtre de Koffi Kwahulé by Virginie Soubrier
ISBN: 9789042038967
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Homme de th tre, romancier et nouvelliste, Koffi Kwahul (C te d'Ivoire, 1956) appartient la g n ration des auteurs de la postind pendance. Revendiquant son appartenance la diaspora noire, ses pi ces r dig es entre 1991 et 2005 constituent la p riode jazz de son th tre au cours de laquelle son criture s'inspire de l' coute obsessionnelle de Coltrane, Monk ou encore Coleman. L'utopie po tique de l'auteur afro-europ en - effacer la s paration entre le drame et la musique - remet en question la notion m me de drame et fait dialoguer le th tre avec d'autres esth tiques contemporaines. Mais cette criture-jazz, dont la radicalit trouve sa source dans la m moire de l'histoire des Noirs en Europe et en Am rique, soul ve galement des questions politiques: celles de l'identit et des conditions de possibilit d'un avenir en fusion.
The Aesthetic and Moral Art of Wole Soyinka by Yemi D. Ogunyemi
ISBN: 9781680530346
Publication Date: 2017-07-15
The Aesthetic and Moral Art of Wole Soyinka, a scholarly monograph, is a compendium of the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka's creative works. Book One shows the dramatic, intellectual, fundamental, aesthetic and moral art. Book Two dwells upon literature, value, art, morality, aesthetics and other human interests. Book Three speaks to the mythology, history, and culture of the Yoruba people. The research lets one know that literature is an integral part of mythology, from which Soyinka has derived his inspiration.

Of Interest

Research Process

For more information see:

Strategy: Get Started - Search Terms - Considering Format and Sources - Selecting a Search Tool - Managing your Sources - Literary Review

Citing Others

Citation

MLA Handbook by The Modern Language Association of America
ISBN: 9781603292627
Publication Date: 2016-04-01
The Modern Language Association, the authority on research and writing, takes a fresh look at documenting sources in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, the official guide to MLA format. Works are published today in a dizzying variety of ways: a novel, for example, may be read in print, online, or as an e-book--or perhaps listened to as an audiobook. Writers of research papers routinely need to know how to cite works on Web sites, videos on platforms like YouTube, interviews and other works created by multiple authors, journal articles contained in databases, online images, posts on social media sites, song lyrics, and more. Instead of providing separate instructions for each format, the MLA's unique, innovative approach recommends one set of guidelines that writers can apply to any type of source.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by Joseph Gibaldi; Modern Language Association of America Staff
ISBN: 9781603290258
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Widely adopted by universities, colleges, and secondary schools, the MLA Handbook is the guide millions of writers have relied on for over half a century. The seventh edition, taken out of print by the MLA in spring 2016 upon publication of the eighth edition, provides the MLA's previous recommendations on documentation style for use in student writing. Please note that copies of the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook include a code for accessing an accompanying Web site. The Web site is no longer available.

MLA Overview

MLA Handbook by The Modern Language; The Modern Language Association of America
ISBN: 9781603293518
Publication Date: 2021-04-06

MLA Handbook Plus

Books

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Lippincott, 1960.

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.

Learn more: Citing Books

Articles

Llanera, Tracy. "Rethinking Nihilism: Rorty Vs. Taylor, Dreyfus and Kelly." Philosophy & Social Criticism, vol. 42, no. 9, 2016, pp. 937-950.

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Lukainoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt. "The Coddling of the American Mind." The Atlantic, 1 Sept. 2015, pp. 42-52.

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Periodical, Day Month Year, pages.

Learn more: Citing Periodicals

Web

University Libraries: University of Colorado, Boulder. University of Colorado Boulder, www.libraries.colorado.edu. Access 1 Jul. 2024.

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

Learn more: Citing Electronic Sources

* Note: in works cited pages, the second and subsequent lines of citations are indented by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent. Learn more about formatting.