James Eskridge Genova

James E. Genova is Professor of History and Film Studies at The Ohio State University-Marion Campus. He is the author of Making New People: Politics, Cinema, and Liberation in Burkina Faso (1983-1987) (Michigan State University Press, 2022), Colonial Ambivalence, Cultural Authenticity, and the Limitations of Mimicry in French-Ruled West Africa, 1914-1956 (Peter Lang, 2004) and Cinema and Development in West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2013). All analyze the emergence of anticolonial movements, specifically in the field of cultural politics, and the resistance to imperialism broadly. They highlight the dialects of colonizers and colonized as well as post-colonial revolutionary regimes in the process of articulating identities that became vehicles for the formation of postcolonial African states and the assertion of Africa’s place in the world. Genova’s work centers on revolutionary cinematic practices in African history and their intersection with the formation of systems of power that aim toward the liberation of the person and society. Professor Genova has also published several articles and chapters in edited volumes on African cinema, cultural politics, imperialism and decolonization, and identity formation. His work has appeared in Black Camera, The International History Review, and Alternatives, among other journals.