TLTL, IU Press offer a glimpse of Africa through windows on lineBy Jayne Spencer | |
 The authors are (left to right) Brian Winchester, Ruth Stone, project leader Patrick McNaughton, John Hanson and dele jegede. |
This past spring, armchair
tourists and students alike were offered their first glimpse into a vast and complex continent. Five Windows in Africa, a CD-ROM co-produced by the Teaching and Learning Technologies Lab (TLTL) at IU Bloomington and the IU Press, was developed from the fieldwork of its five authors. The interactive work includes a spectacular range of events: a bird dance by an itinerant masquerader in a small community outside Bamako, Mali; the funeral of a Liberian expatriate who died in the United States and whose body is returned to his native land and laid to rest; Muslim Friday prayers in the city of Wa, Ghan a; the 1979 Lancaster House Constitutional Conference in London, at which leaders of white and black Rhodesia negotiated the agreement that led to the creation of Zimbabwe; and life in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, where views of popular culture reveal the dynamic lifestyle that characterizes Africa’s most populous city. Co-authors are Patrick McNaughton, IUB professor of African art history; John Hanson, director of the African Studies Program at IUB; Brian Winchester, director of the Center for the Study of Global Change at IUB; Ruth Stone, professor of folklore at IUB; and dele jegede, supervisor of the art appreciation program at Indiana State University. The multi-media tool combines spoken narration, text, music and visuals that include photographs and video footage shot on site by the authors. While it can be purchased separately, the CD is designed as a companion to one of the IU Press’ most successful textbooks. Africa, edited by Phyllis Martin, IUB professor of history, and Patrick O’Meara, IU dean for international programs, was first publi shed in 1977 and has been updated periodically to reflect changes in African society and politics. TLTL has developed two other multimedia CD-ROMs focusing on Africa, Investigating Olduvai: Archaeology of Human Origins, and Music and Culture of West Africa: The Strauss Expedition, an investigation of a 1934 field research study of the music of 21 ethni c groups. Due to be released by IU Press next month, the latter CD’s co-creator is IUB folklorist and ethnomusicologist Gloria J. Gibson. |
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Publication date: September 29, 2000
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