Film & Media

Documents

  • Parsons, Neil, The Revolution in Show Business, 1871-1913

  • Parsons, Neil, Kinetoscope & Cinematographe in southern Africa 1895-1899

  • Parsons, Neil, Videography of Botswana

  • Parsons, Neil, Blue Lagoon article

  • Parsons, Neil, ‘American movie-maker Harold Shaw as an agent of British Influence 1916-1920’. Paper presented at British Silent Film Festival, King’s College London, March 2018

  • Parsons, Neil, Guess Who????

Bibliography

Books

2018     Black and White Bioscope: Making Movies in Africa 1899 to 1925.Bristol: Intellect Books & University of Chicago Press ISBN 978-1-78320-943-9, & Pretoria: Protea ISBN 978-1-4853-0955-0, Oct. 2018, hardback 272pp.

2009-10 Clicko the Wild Dancing BushmanCape Town: Jacana Media, July 2009. xvi & 251 pp. (ISBN 978-177009-710-0) & Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Dec. 2010 (ISBN 978-022664-7418 cloth; ISBN 978-022664-7425 paperback). Significant reviews:

  • Amanda Hellerin Boston Globe,12 Dec. 2010

  • Vanessa Toulmin (Prof. Popular Entertainment, U. Sheffield) in Times Higher Education,3 March 2011

  • Patric Tariq Mellet on cape-slavery-heritage-iblog.co.za25 Aug. 2009 ('Clicko the story of Franz Taaibosch, yesterday's Caster Semenya')

African Film (Sound)

2017     Film review:Krotoa(Penguin Films of Cape Town, dir. Roberta Durrant), Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, vol.71, no.2, Dec. 2017, pp. 212-16

2016     Film review:A United Kingdom (Pathé, Perfect Weekend, Yoruba Saxon, 20th Century Fox etc., dir. Amma Asante), in Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, vol.70, no.2, pp.108-112.

2015     External examiner:'Once Upon a Time in the Veld: South African Westerns in Context' MA in African Cinema, University of Cape Town Centre for Film & Media Studies

2014     Book chapter:'False dawns over the Kalahari? Botswana film production in historical perspective' in Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, ed. Critical Approaches to African Cinema Discourse(Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/ Ronan & Littlefield Publication Group), pp.135-53. ISBN 978-0-7391-8093-8 (electronic 978-0-7391-8094-5)

2013     External examiner: NAME 'From Matieland to Mother City: Landscape, Identity and Place in Feature Films set in the Cape Province, 1947-1989' PhD, University of Cape Town Department of Historical Studies

2009     External examiner: NAME 'Creating a Black Film Industry: State Intervention and Films for African Audiences in South Africa, 1956-1990' PhD, University of Cape Town Department of Historical Studies

2009     Unpublished talk:'Barack Obama, Lady Khama, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: African truths behind Hollywood fiction?' Botswana Society Lecture, National Museum & Art Gallery, Gaborone, 21 April 2009 

2009     Unpublished talk: 'Five films almost made in Botswana' Botswana Resource Sector Conference, Grand Palm International Convention Centre, Gaborone. Weds 10 June 2009

2008     Unpublished talk:'Making The No 1 Ladies Detective Agencytv series in Botswana' (i) Australian National University, Old Canberra House 20/20/20 Seminar Series 18 Sept. 2008; (ii) Alliance Française, Suva, Fiji, 3 Nov. 2008; (iii) Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, Department of History Lecture, Thurs 20 Nov. 2008

2008     Unpublished talk: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? African Realities and Hollywood Fiction' Wheaton College, Mass., USA, Social Sciences lecture, Tues. 2 Dec. 2008

2008     Seminar paper:'Stone Age cinema and the cinema of the Stone Age in Southern Africa' Australian National University, Research School of Humanities Work in Progress Seminar, 17 October 2008

2007     Seminar paper: 'White man's bluff: the politics of film in colonial Botswana 1943-46' International Association of Media Historians conference, Amsterdam, 18-21 July 2007

2006a   Journal article: 'A hundred years of Botswana films and filming' Botswana Notes and Records, vol.38, pp.33-42

2006b   External examiner: 'The Great Dance: Myth, History and Identity in Documentary Film Representations of the Bushmen, 1925-2000' PhD, University of Cape Town Department of Historical Studies

2004        Seminar paper:‘The Kanye cinema experiment, 1945-48’ University of Botswana, Department of History seminar, Wed. 3 March 2004

2003a       Seminar paper:‘Film history and the African historian: the case of Botswana and the Kalahari, 1934-2002’ South East Regional African Studies spring conference, State University of West Georgia at Carrollton, Sat. 12 April 2003

2003b      Seminar paper: ’Film and history in Botswana: western perceptions of an interventions in Kalahari politics, 1934-2002’ La Trobe University, Melbourne, African Research Institute, Thurs. 12 June 2003

2003c      Internet publication: Film history and the African historian: Botswana and the Kalahari, 1934-2002’ Bi-annual Conference of the South African Historical Society 2003: ‘Southern Africa: Yesterday and Today’ University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, Tues. 1 July 2003<http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/history/sahs/papers/Parsons.doc>

2003d      Seminar paper:'Films help lighten our darkness: cinema and the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1943-1948’ University of London, School of Oriental & African Studies African History seminar, Weds. 19 Nov. 2003

2002        Seminar paper:'Three Khamas and the Kalahari: putting Botswana history on film' First International African Film & History Conference, University of Cape Town, 6-8 July 2002

2001        Film review:The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, the Hottentot Venus. A film by Zola Maseko, H-Net Multimedia Review <H-SAfrica@h-net.msu.edu> (20 December 2001), reprinted in Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, vol.16, no.1 (2002), pp.68-69

1999        Internet: The BBC Video "Rhodes: the life and legend of Cecil Rhodes" and historical films about Africa" 14k, since removed to <www.thuto.org/ubh> 

African Film (Silent)

?     Journal article: 'The Blue Lagoon (1923)', The Silent Film Quarterly, vol.2, no.4, in press 

2016     Journal article: 'Make faces, Zulu! Make faces, Zulu! Silent comedy and ethnic stereotyping in early South African movies', Journal of African Cinemas, vol.8, no 2, pp.133-54. ISSN 1754-9221 (online: 1754923X)

2015     Journal article: 'Santry'sWar Topicalities: South Africa's pioneer cartoon films, 1914-15',Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, vol.69, no.2, pp.58-66. ISSN 2313-2590. ISSN 2313-2590

2013     Journal article: 'Nation-building movies made in South Africa (1916-18): I.W. Schlesinger, Harold Shaw, and the lingering ambiguities of South African union' Journal of Southern African Studies, vol.39, no.3, pp. 641-60. ISSN 0305-7070

2009     Journal article: 'Investigating the origins of The Rose of Rhodesia(1918). Parts I & II Screening the Past: An Online Journal of Media and History (Melbourne), issue 25, July 2009, Special Issue on The Rose of Rhodesia (1918)

2015     Seminar paper:'The London Missionary Society on silent film' University of London Institute of Historical Research, Christian Missions in Global History seminar & Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image, Gordon Square Cinema, 6 June 2015

2014     Unpublished talk:'Boer War films, Sold to the Malays, and the banning of The Dop Doctor in 1916' North-Eastern Workshop on Southern Africa, Burlington, Vermont, 17-19 Oct. 2014

2012     Seminar paper:'South African epic films and the ambiguity of Union, 1916-22' Department of History University of Botswana seminar, Thurs. 9 Aug. 2012

2011     Seminar paper:'Early South African movies and the lingering ambiguities of South African union 1910-18' Centre of African Studies, University of London/ Birkbeck College (Southern African History Culture & Society Series) workshop, 10 June 2011

2010     Seminar paper:'Before Schlesinger: Carl Hertz, The Great Kimberley Diamond Robberyand the cinema of illusion' Department of Historical Studies Seminar, University of Cape Town, Weds. 24 Feb. 2010

2009     Seminar paper: 'Zuluology: images of Africa and Africans in South African films 1911-1923' University of Botswana Department of English 5thInternational Conference 'Mapping English in Africa', Gaborone, Thurs 4 June 2009

2009     Unpublished talk:'A “lost” rival to Hollywood: South African feature films and their representation of Africans, 1911-1923' African Studies Centre Public Talk, University of Leiden Social Science Building, Thurs 12 Nov. 2009

2008     Unpublished talk:'The cinema of the Stone Age in Southern Africa' School of Social Sciences staff and students, University of the South Pacific, 4 Nov. 2008

2008     Unpublished talk:'South African Hollywood? The Rose of Rhodesia (1918)' Trent University, Peterborough, Canada, Department of History Seminar, Fri 21 Nov. 2008

Art & Communication

2018     Book chapter: ‘ ‘ in Illuminating Lives

2016     Unpublished talk:'John Koenkeefe Mohl and Tshekedi Khama: an African landscape painter and his patron' University of Birmingham African Studies/ History seminar, 20 Jan. 2016

2015     Seminar paper:'John Koenakeefe Mohl and the Bechuanaland Protectorate: the transfrontier career of a black South African landscape painter' JSAS/RoAPE/ SAIPAR Conference, Livingstone, Zambia, 8 Aug.2015

2012     Book chapter:'The "Victorian Internet" reaches half way to Cairo: Cape-Tanganyika telegraphs, 1875-1926', chap.5 in Miriam de Briujn & Rijk van Dijk, eds. The Social Life of Connectivity in Africa(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.95-121. ISBN 978-1-137-27801-2

2009     Seminar paper:'Cape-Zambezi Telecommunications 1875-1914 (Preliminary Report)' African Studies Centre, (‘Connections and Transformations: The Social Construction of Linking Technologies in Africa and Beyond’ Research Programme), Leiden, Tues. 3 November 2009

1989       Periodical article: with Thandi Kgosidintsi, 'Publishing in Botswana' African Book Publishing Record(Oxford), vol. xv, no.3,pp.171-72.

1968        Periodical article: 'The Tswana press—an outline of its history since 1856' Kutlwano(Gaborone), vol.8, no.8 (Aug,), pp.48-52

Circus & Popular Entertainment

2009b   Book chapter:with Alinah K. Segobye, ‘From Banyoles to Botswana: the return of a Bushman to Africa' in Witnesses to History: Documents and Writings on the Return of Cultural Objects(Paris: UNESCO), pp.391-98

2012     Journal article: 'Kidnap in Connecticut [1919]' Bandwagon, Journal of the Circus Historical Society, vol.55, no.4, July-Aug. 2012, pp.32-38

Videographies

2018     Book appendix: ‘Non-Fiction Films made in Sub-Saharan Africa 1897-1925’, pp.230-37 in Neil Parsons, Black and White Bioscope: Movies Made in Africa 1899 to 1925. Bristol: Intellect Books, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, & Pretoria: Protea