Publications

I have divided these publications roughly into Academic and Literary/News publications; however, these boundaries are sometimes ambiguous. For example, an interview or a translation might be published on an academic site or a news site, but the content might similar either place.  For organizational purposes, I have limited the publications I list under “Academic” to books, journal articles, book chapters, reports, and theses. All of the academic blogs, interviews, reviews, etc, I file under literary, even if they were published in an academic journal. Under the Literary/News publications, I list the articles alphabetically by the title of the publication in which they appeared rather than by date.

If you want to read an article, and you can’t find it online, send me an email at cmccain [at] westmont.edu or carmenmccain [at] yahoo.com, and I’d be happy to send you a copy.

Academic publications and writing

(See Google scholar Page)

Books

Kendhammer, Brandon and Carmen McCain. Boko Haram. Ohio Short Histories of Africa Series. Ohio University Press, 2018.

Unpublished Theses

McCain, Carmen. “The Politics of Exposure: Contested Cosmopolitanisms, Revelation of secrets, and Intermedial Reflexivity in Hausa popular expression.” PhD Thesis. University of Wisconsin, Madison. Department of African Languages and Literature. 2014. Print. (Table of Contents)

McCain, Carmen “Writing the Angel: Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel.” MA Thesis. University of Wisconsin, Madison.Department of African Languages and Literature. 2007. Print.

Articles

McCain, Carmen. “Nollywood and its Others: Questioning English Language Hegemony in Nollywood Studies.” The Global South. 6.2 (2013): 30-54. Print.

McCain, Carmen. “Video Exposé: Metafiction and Message in Nigerian Films.” Journal of African Cinemas. 4.1 (2012): 26-57. Print. (Africabib abstract, Film Festival Research bibliography) (full text )

McCain, Carmen. “FESPACO in a time of Nollywood: The politics of the ‘video’ film at Africa’s oldest festival.” Journal of African Media Studies. 3.2 (2011): 241-261. Print. (bibliography abstract) (full text)

Book Chapters

McCain, Carmen. “Nollywood, Kannywood and a Decade of Hausa Film Censorship in Nigeria.” Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship Around the World. Eds. Daniel Biltereyst and Roel Vande Winkel. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013. 223-240. Print. (review) (full text)

McCain, Carmen. “Islam and Modernity.” A Companion to African Religion. Ed Elias Bongmba. Oxford: Blackwell, 2012. 355-364. Print.

(NOTE: The original title was “Islam and Modernity in Hausa Cultural Politics: A Cultural Overview”, but it got cut down by the editor to “Islam and Modernity” to better fit in with the format of other chapters in the book. The content of the chapter is reflected in the original title, which presents modernity in a historical Islamic Hausa context. I end with a discussion of Hausa film.)

McCain, Carmen. “Reimagining Gender Spaces in Abbas Sadiq and Zainab Idris’s video-film Albashi.” Fictions, Factions and African Creative Imagination. Eds. Toyin Falola and Fallou Ngom. New York: Routledge, 2010. 163-189. Print.(full text)

(NOTE: There was some sort of proofreader’s error on my bibliography. I submitted the bibliography in an abbreviated form, and the proofreader must have accidentally copied and pasted the wrong book when extending the citation. The following articles were cited to the wrong book in the publication. They should read as follows:
Stephens, Connie. 1991. “Marriage in the Hausa Tatsuniya Tradition: A Cultural and Cosmic Balance,” in Hausa Women in the Twentieth Century, ed. Catherine Coles and Beverly Mack, 221-231. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Sule, Balaraba B. M. and Priscilla E. Starratt. 1991. “Islamic Leadership Positions for Women in Contemporary Kano Society,” in in Hausa Women in the Twentieth Century, ed. Catherine Coles and Beverly Mack, 29-49. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.)

Conference Proceedings

Ayakoroma, Barclays, Sola Balogun, Carmen McCain, et al. “Panel Discussion of Lead Paper: The Stage Script and the Film Script.” The Time is Out of Joint: Playwriting in a Time of Global Incoherence. 2^nd Playwriting Confab 2015. Ed. Femi Osofisan, Yemi Atanda, and Abiola Fasoranti. Ibadan: Mosuro Publishers, 2016. 172-201.

Reports

McCain, Carmen.“Kannywood: A Growing Hausa Film Industry Under Fire.” West Africa Research Association Newsletter. (Spring 2009): 20. Print.

McCain, Carmen. “The Treatment of HIV in Hausa Novels and Film.” West Africa Research Association Newsletter. (Spring 2007): 12. Print.

 

Literary and News Publications

Book Chapters

McCain, Carmen. “Introduction.” Portraits of a Trip: A Journalist’s Glimpse of the United States of America, by Babangida Ahmadu Kakaki. Leadership Editors Limited: Abuja, 2008. Print.

Translations

Gordon, Glenna, photographer.  Diagram of the Heart. Trans. Carmen McCain. Red Hook, New York, 2015.

Gordon, Glenna, photographer. Diagram of the Heart. Open Society Exhibition, New York. October 2015-May 2016. (I translated excerpts of Hausa novels featured in exhibition, including excerpts from Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s Wa Zai Auri Jahila,  Farida Ado Gaci’s Tubalin Toka, Hadiza Sani Garba’s Cikon Farinciki, Jamila Umar Tanko’s Gangar Jikinsa Na Aura, and Sa’adatu Baba Ahmed’s Sirrin Zuciyata)

McCain, Carmen. “Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino’s Kaico!” (chapter 1). Sentinel Nigeria. 5 (2011). Web.

Selected Interviews

McCain, Carmen. “Humanity, Culture, and Representation in Theatre and Film: Africa Ukoh, author of 54 Silhouettes and Carmen McCain in Conversation.” Brittle Paper. 7 April 2019.

McCain, Carmen. “An Evolution in Nollywood, Nigeria’s New Wave: A Conversation with Chris Eneaji.” Black Camera: An International Film Journal 7.2 (2016): 194-216.

Ryan, Connor and Carmen McCain. “Interview with ‘Confusion Na Wa’ Film Producer Kenneth Gyang.” ASA News. 57^th Annual Meeting Special Issue. African Studies Association, 2014. Web. (NOTE: Connor Ryan asked me to help him with the  interview but I was not involved in the transcription. ASA News did not credit either of us with the interview in the online version, but I have listed it here because we were the ones that did it. For more on this, see my blog.) 

McCain, Carmen. “Chinua Achebe in Hausa: An Interview with Ibrahim Sheme.” Chimurenga Chronic. (December 2013): 21. Print.

McCain, Carmen. “Conversation with Nkem Ivara, author of Closer than a Brother.” Weekly Trust 30 March 2013. (reprinted on my blog)

McCain, Carmen. “A Conversation with Award-winning Hausa film Director Hafizu Bello.” Weekly Trust. 16 March 2013. (reprinted on Muryar Arewa).

McCain, Carmen. “In Conversation with Four Tiv Filmmakers.” Weekly Trust. 19 May 2012. Print and Web. (reprinted on my blog).

McCain, Carmen. “‘I’d Love to Tell More African Stories in My Films’-Julius Amedume.”  Weekly Trust 12 November 2011. (blog post version with links to films)

McCain, Carmen. “I left banking job to direct movies –Kunle Afolayan” Weekly Trust 2 April 2011. (hard copy pages 18 and 19, page 44)  (Extended version of longer interview, with more photos, on my blog)

McCain, Carmen. “Sal Jide Thomas: We’ve distribution problem in U.S.” Weekly Trust  8 January 2011. (hard copy cover, p. 18, p. 19, p. 20)

McCain, Carmen. “Why Nollywood is Important –Wanjiku wa Ngugi.” Weekly Trust 18 December 2010. (hard copy cover, p. 18 and 19, p. 20)

McCain, Carmen. “The Heroism of Ordinary People: An Interview with Helon Habila.” Leadership 19 November 2007. Web. (Republished on Ibrahim Sheme’s blog and also republished on my own blog).

Articles in Blogs, Journals, Magazines and Newspapers

American Book Review

(2018) “Postcolonial Mythologies: review of What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah.” American Book Review. May-June 2018. p. 6

Black Camera

McCain, Carmen. “An Evolution in Nollywood, Nigeria’s New Wave: A Conversation with Chris Eneaji.” Black Camera: An International Film Journal 7.2 (2016): 194-216.

Blueprint

(2014) “Remembering ‘Dan Ibro (Tare da Baturiyarsa).” Blueprint. 15 December 2014. Print and Web. (reprint from my blog)

Cassava Republic Blog

(unfortunately, Cassava Republic seems to delete their Books of the Month after the month ends. I will eventually try to put up a copy of my short essay on my blog )

(2013) “September Book of the Month: Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s Wa Zai Auri Jahila.” (I put up a blog post about it here.)

Chimurenga

(2009) with Nazir Ahmed Hausawa and Ahmed Alkanawy. “On the Current Censorship Crisis in Kano.” 14 December 2009.

Chimurenga Chronic

(2013) “An Interview with Ibrahim Sheme.” Chimurenga Chronic. December 2013.

Film Afrique 

(this site is now defunct I will try to transfer the content to my blog eventually)

(2011) “The National Film and Video Censors Board Website Returns with Mountains of Information” December.

(2011) Anchor Babies in America…    June. (first published under the name “Anchor Baby and the dark underbelly of the American Dream” in Weekly Trust on 12 February 2011, reprint by permission)

IPS News

(2009) “Culture-Nigeria: Award-Winning Film Lands Director in Jail” 16 February.

Journal of African Cinemas

(2012),  ‘Video Expose: Metafiction and Message in Nigerian Films.’ Journal of African Cinemas. (2012) 4.1: 26-57.

Journal of African Media Studies

(2011) ‘FESPACO in a time of Nollywood: The politics of the ‘video’ film at Africa’s oldest festival,’ Journal of African Media Studies 3:2, pp. 241-261.

Kagablog

(2008) “first installment in a series of thoughts on the jos crisis.” kagablog. 12 December 2008. Web. (reprint from my blog).

(2007) “lumumba (2000) directed by raoul peck.” kagablog. 6 May 2007. (reprint from my blog)

Leadership

(2008) “Re: Most Gorgeous Nigerian Women (apparently live abroad…)” opinion piece published under the name Talatu-Carmen in the “Artville” column of Leadership Sunday. 19 October. (hard copy p. 53)

Next

(unfortunately NEXT has also gone offline. I will try to archive my articles here, eventually, once I can locate hard copies to photograph.)

(2009) “Hard times in Kannywood” Next. Sunday. 8 March. p.25

(2009) “We Didn’t do anything wrong: Interview with Sulaiman Abubakar.” Next. Sunday. 8 March. p. 26.

(2009) “Mallam Rabo Speaks” Next. Sunday. 8 March. p. 26. (See complete interview in my blog post of February 13, 2009)

Nigerianfilms.com/modernghana.com

“Interview with Sani Mu’azu, President of the Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria” NigerianFilms.com/modernghana.com. 13 February 2009.    (The interview posted here was initially taken without attribution from my blog by Nigerianfilms.com and then reposted by modernghana.com. After much badgering from me and various friends, they finally put my name on the interview. You can read the original at my blog here.)

Nigerians Talk

(2012) “Kannywood: the growth of a Nigerian language industry.” Nigerians Talk. 9 October 2012.

Pambazuka News

McCain, Carmen, Nazir Ahmed Hausawa, and Ahmed Alkanaway. (2008). “Censorship crisis in Kano” Pambazuka News. (reprint from blog, also reprinted as “”Nigeria: Censorship – Arrests and Fines for Hausa Language film industry in Kano” on Africa Files).

Sentinel Nigeria

(2011) translation of excerpt from Chapter 1 of novel, “Kaico! by Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino” February. Issue 5.

WARA (West African Research Association) Newsletter

(2009) “Kannywood: A Growing Hausa Film Industry Under Fire.” Spring. p. 20.

Weekly Trust

Since 16 October 2011, I have had a column in the Weekly Trust, published every Saturday. I also occasionally contribute to the weekend magazine feature for Weekly Trust. On this page, I provide a listing of the features I’ve done for Sunday and Weekly Trust, and you can access an archive of my column on its own page.

Features/non column Weekly Trust pieces

(2011) “Lawal Kaura: Exit of one of Kannywood’s most versatile” 17 December 2011. (hard copy)

(2011) “‘I’d Love to Tell More African Stories in My Films’-Julius Amedume”  12 November. (blog post version with links to films)

(2011) “The ‘Second Coming’ of Kannywood” 21 May.

(2011) “I left banking job to direct movies –Kunle Afolayan” 2 April. (hard copy pages 18 and 19, page 44)  (Extended version of longer interview, with more photos, on my blog)

(2011) “Sal Jide Thomas: We’ve distribution problem in U.S.”  8 January. (hard copy cover, p. 18, p. 19, p. 20)

(2010) “Why Nollywood is Important –Wanjiku wa Ngugi” 18 December. (hard copy cover, p. 18 and 19, p. 20)

Vanguard

(2012) “Unity or Hell? Choices for the New Year”12 January 2012. (Reprint of column first published in Weekly Trust)