In the year marking the 50th anniversary of 1974’s Rumble in the Jungle, we invite papers responding to this Cold War-era global African event. For this iconic boxing match, which saw underdog Muhammad Ali defeat George Foreman after several rounds of rope-a-dope tactics, President Mobutu Sese Seko welcomed the world to Kinshasa, capital of his recently-renamed Zaïre. This panel aims to explore the match and the accompanying Zaire 74 music festival as iconic Pan-African knowledge production and Cold War spectacle. We welcome proposals from across disciplines exploring this event from a variety of perspectives.
We invite papers on a broad variety of topics across disciplines related to these events, including but not limited to:
– Zaire 74 and the Rumble in the Jungle within the context of other Pan-African festivals of the period (e.g. FESMAN ‘66, FESTAC ‘77)
– Boxing and the image of the boxer in Congo, past and present
– Mobutu’s patronage of the arts (and authenticité)
– Legacies of the fight in American and Congolese cultural memory
– Creative responses from across the arts, such as film (When We Were Kings; Ali), popular painting, and music
– Rope-a-dope as tactic
This panel is being organized by Elaine Sullivan and Ruth Sacks, both of the University of Johannesburg. Please write to both of us at elaine.e.sullivan@gmail.com and ruthsacks@gmail.com. We welcome initial inquiries from those who are interested as well as full abstracts. Please write by March 8th.
