The night before Professor Cristovão Nwachukwu's Feb. 10 brown bag event, we will screen Dakan. Come join us to enjoy the film, dinner, and an informal discussion of the film.

The following day, Nwachukwu's lecture will discuss the representation of spaces that enable and/or stifle queer desire in the film Dakan (1997) by Mohamed Camara. This discussion showcases heterosexual familial and social structures that push queer characters to reinvent spaces in which they can freely experience love and pleasure. Nwachukwu will argue that the visual and sonic elements of the film reflect competing desires of the lead characters’ families for heterosexuality and the desires for queer freedom of the lead characters. The talk will mainly engage with queer African studies theory to interpret these spaces of desire and intervene in current scholarship about the film to highlight the ability of African queerness to change its environments and confront social conventions.