New Bibliographies for African StudiesSub-Saharan African Films and Filmmakers: An Annotated Bibliography by Nancy Schmidt;Bibliographies for African Studies, 1970-1986 by Yvette SchevenReview by: Hans PanofskyAfrica Today, Vol. 36, No. 2, African Art, Film & Literature (2nd Qtr., 1989), pp. 31-32Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4186553 .

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New Bibliographies for African Studies

Hans Panofaky

Nancy Schmidt, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN FILMS AND FILMMAKERS: An Annotated Bibliography (London, Munchen, New York, Paris: Hans Zell Publishers, 1988), pp. 401 Hb $80.00.

Yvette Scheven, BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR AFRICAN STUDIES, 1970-1986, (London, Munchen, New York, Paris: Hans Zell Publishers, 1988), pp. 615, Hb $100.00.

Adding to the already numerous guides, directories, bibliographies, handbooks, indexes, and other companions for African Studies, Hans Zell Publishers have recently added two major titles to their impressive list.

One of these new reference works is the only existing effort bibliographically to control the vastly scattered literature on African films and filmmaking. Nancy Schmidt's Sub-Saharan Films and Filmmakers is a truly impressive collection of titles culled from about 270 periodicals printed in all parts of the world about all aspects of African filmmaking. Apart from the difficulty of identifying and reaching the joumals the author had to contend with deficient indexes and obscure references to the material. Considering the importance of films in the domain of cultural expression, one wonders how Africanist scholars could for so long forego the vast storage of knowledge provided by African filmmakers and their commentators. This work reveals the gap between African gains in self-perception and self-examination through this visual medium, and the general lack of access to the films themselves and the literature about them. As the author points out in an as yet unpublished article, "Visualizing Africa: the Bibliography of Films by Sub-Saharan African Filmmakers": 'The writing of African authors who are experts on film in their own countries is not well known or readily accessible to outsiders, either in Africa or outside the continent" A distinguishing feature of her work is the wide range given to African opinion expressed in African publications, not generally reflected in articles written outside Africa.

Overall this bibliography identifies close to four thousand written sources in European languages dealing with approximately one thousand films produced by Africans over three decades. The title, foreward, and introduction are bilingual in English and French in recognition of the overwhelming role played by French speaking African filmmakers and French contributors in the development, study, and diffusion of African film production. Entries, many of them annotated, are organized by categories: books, monographs, theses, articles, reviews, and pamphlets. An index facilitates access to actors, film festivals, filmmakers, countries, and general subjects.

Nancy Schmidt, the Africa Area Specialist at Indiana University Library, has already published widely in the field of African children's literature. With this volume she has performed an outstanding service to the Africanist scholarly community, one which had gone unfulfilled for too long.

Hans E. Panofsky is curator of the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois 60201.

2nd Quarter, 1989 31

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The other new reference work is a cumulative, comprehensive bibliography of bibliographies for African Studies by an author skilled in earlier versions of this summation of African sources.

Yvette Scheven, bibliographer of Africana at the University of Illinois in Champaign, cumulates her previous work adding new sources up to and including 1986 and a new listing of continuing bibliographic aids. The volume is a comprehensive guide of Africana bibliographies in the more common European languages. It excludes North African countries. Access to the annotated items is by subject, by country, and through an index comprising authors, subject, and selected titles. The broad inclusion and superb arrangement will ensure the wide use of this 'state of the art" bibliography of bibliographies for African Studies.

The Ivory Coast: A Helpful Reference Work

Victor T. Lie Vine

Robert J. Mundt, HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE IVORY COAST (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1987) pp. xxvii, 246; Map. $29.50 (hb).

This is the forty-first in Scarecrow's African historical dictionary series, all still under Jon Woronoffs editorship. Mundt's volume has much to recommend it: an excellent bibliography, a chronology, and a valuable table of Ivoirian ethnic groups. The dictionary itself, to which about half the book is devoted, is a reasonably complete compendium of people, places, things, organizations, and institutions, particularly those of importance since World War II. Mundt has also provided references from the dictionary to the bibliography, a useful feature of the book. There are also some things that need fixing, perhaps in the next edition: I missed reference to some the country's more interesting political events, including the various 'plots" against the regime and their instigators (e.g. Camille Gris). At least two or three of the Ivory Coast's fine poets deserved mention, as, for example, Maurice Kone and Bertin Donteo. And some of the translations from the French are misleading: conjoncture may mean, literally, "conjuncture," but "situation" is closer to its actual use; petits blancs are, literally, "little whites," but usage puts the terrms meaning closer to "petty" whites, as in petty bourgeois, people at the lower end of the middle class range who, in the African context, were members of the white colonial ruling class, though not of its ruling elite; etc. In all, however, this is a good addition to the series, and, despite its flaws, deserves a place in professional, collegiate, and public Africana collections.

Victor T Le Vine is Professor of Political Science at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130.

32 AFRICA TODAY

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