John C. McCall
Associate Professor

(Ph.D. 1992, Indiana University)

3543 Faner Hall
Department of Anthropology
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4502

Phone: (618) 453-5010
Fax: (618) 453-5037
Email: jmccall@siu.edu

• African Film and Video
• African Popular Culture
• African Music, Dance & Art
  
• Nigeria, Igbo
  
• Ethnography

I am currently co-Principle Investigator (with Olusegun Ojewuyi) of The Nollywood Project, a collaborative research venture devoted to study of the Nigerian video movie industry.

The project is sponsored by the Global Media Research Center, a unit of the College of Mass Communications and Media Arts at SIUC.

We are particularly interested in the ethnography of media consumption in Africa and the implications of new commercial media that do not rely on foreign funding agencies or the infrastructures of transnational media corporations.

• ANTH 271 - syllabus
  Africa in African Cinema
• ANTH 300D - syllabus
  Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology
  
• ANTH 310A - syllabus
  Peoples and Cultures of Africa
  
• ANTH 480 - syllabus
  Senior Seminar
• ANTH 410H - syllabus
  African Expressive Culture
  
• ANTH 410M - syllabus
  Healing and Culture

• ANTH 500D - syllabus
  Theory and Method in
  Sociocultural Anthropology
  
• ANTH 500E - syllabus
  History of Anthropology
  
• ANTH 515A - syllabus
  Theorizing the Body
  
• ANTH 515A - syllabus
  Interpreting Cultural Space
  
• ANTH 515A - syllabus
  The Problem of Time in Anthropological Analysis
  
• ANTH 515A - syllabus
  Visual Anthropology:
  Ethnographic Film
• ANTH 515B - syllabus
  Ethnomusicology
  

• 2007. "The Pan-Africanism We Have: Nollywood's Invention of Africa." Editor: Onookome Okome. Special Edition of Film International (FilmInt.). Issue 28, 5(4): 92-97.

• 2006. "Nollywood Shows the Way." The Africa Report. (Published by Jeune Afrique) No. 3. July 3: 120-124.
  

• 2005. "Nollywood Confidential: the unlikely rise of Nigerian video film." Fader. 26:116-132. (Reprint)

• 2004. "Juju and Justice at the Movies: Vigilantes in Nigerian Popular Videos." African Studies Review. 47(3): 51-67. (full text online) (pdf)

• 2004. "Nollywood Confidential: the unlikely rise of Nigerian video film." Transition Magazine. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. 95: 98-109. (pdf)

• 2004. "Igbo Shamanism." In Encyclopedia of Shamanism, Mariko N. Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridmann (eds.) Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 925-928.

• 2002. "Madness, Money, and Movies: Watching Nigerian Popular Videos with a Native Doctor's Guidance." Africa Today. 49(3): 78-94. (pdf)

• 2001 "Introduction." In Trading States of the Oil Rivers. By G. I. Jones. Murray Last (series Ed.) Classics in African Anthropology Series. Hamburg: LIT with the International African Institute. xi-xix.

• 2000. Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

• 1999. "Structure, Agency and the Locus of the Social: Why Post-Structural Theory is Good for Archaeology." In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, John Robb (ed.), Center for Archaeological Investigations, SIUC. Occasional Paper No. 26: 16-20.

• 1998. "The Representation of African Music in Early Writings." In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music,Vol. I: Africa. Ruth Stone (ed.), New York: Garland Publishing. 74-99.

• 1996. "Portrait of a Brave Woman." American Anthropologist. 98(1): 127-136. (pdf)

• 1996. "Motopark Beggars." Anthropology and Humanism. 21(1): 92-95. (pdf)

• 1996. "Discovery as a Research Strategy." Anthropology Newsletter. 37(2): 44 & 42.

• 1995. "Rethinking Ancestors in Africa." Africa. 65(2): 256-270. (pdf)

• 1995. "African Social Organization." In Africa, 3rd ed. Martin, Phyllis and Patrick O'Meara (eds.), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 175-189.

• 1993. "Making Peace with Agwu." Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly. 18(2): 56-66.

• 1993. "Dancing the Past: Experiencing Historical Knowledge in Ohafia, Nigeria. "Passages: A Chronicle of the Humanities (Northwestern University). 6: 8-9. (full text online)

• 1993. "Early Accounts of the Drum in Africa." In Drums: The Heartbeat of Africa. E.A. Dagan (ed.), Montreal: Galerie Amrad African Arts (44-47.)

Dancing Histories Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo. University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor. 2000.