Event

Terri Francis

The No-Theory Chant of Afrosurrealism

The No-Theory Chant of Afrosurrealism sheds much needed light on the rarely seen experimental, absurd and whimsical dimensions of filmmaking and thought in African Diaspora cinemas. Framed by the history of surrealism and American avant-garde movements, the project serves as a platform to redefine the genres of black film and of experimental film through comparing and situating them in the larger frame of surrealism's many reverberations in music, literature, art, and theater as expressed in African Diaspora cinemas.

Terri Francis developed her ideas on Afrosurrealism while she was a professor of film studies and African American Studies at Yale University. Currently, she is visiting associate professor of Cinema Studies at Penn, where she is teaching courses on Spike Lee, African American cinema, experimental film and humor. She is guest editor of Black Camera's Afrosurreal issue (Fall 2013) and she is working on a book about Josephine Baker called Race Burlesque. Ongoing areas of research include Jamaican film history and home movies.