WHA Annual Meeting: Korea 2026

Decolonization has entered the popular lexicon in various spaces in the Global North in recent years, though the historical study of formal decolonization in the twentieth century (defined as the struggle for self-determination) proceeds in parallel, at times diverging from popular narratives and at times in conversation with them. This paper analyzes the 2024 film Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat, directed by Belgian director Johan Grimonplez, to discuss the intersection of popular and academic histories of decolonization. Through a close reading of the sources used – including a range of academic historical literature as well as newsreel footage – this paper discusses how the rise and assassination of Patrice Lumumba appear at the intersection of popular and academic knowledge creation. I will explore how these three histories blend in a global history of decolonization as seen in the film.

This paper will examine historical narratives at play in the Telugu film RRR (2022) and its retelling of the history of two tribal uprisings in late colonial India. The film’s narrative reframes a classic secular history into a post-secular one. It reproduces a new national past for global consumption, and joins a new genre of historical film in Indian cinema.
The paper examines archives and films on the early 20th century tribal uprisings and explores how the current post-secular imaginary draws from the same historical moment.
The paper argues that a new film genre—the new historical—is typical of post-globalization Indian cinema. The tension between secular and post-secular narrative foreshadow the rise of a new post-secular era and the cultural aesthetic. In doing so, these new films are showing us the contours of the global after globalization.

This paper investigates the practical implications of the shifts in the political economy of film production for the pedagogical use of film in teaching African history. For around 50 years, classical frameworks for critiquing filmic depictions of the past have weighed presumable trade-offs between reaching and moving mass audiences and the empirical accuracy or precision of representations. The author’s experiences, across over 15 years of using works by African filmmakers to teach historical topics to students at US universities, instead foreground questions of translation. As such, the shift in West Africa from the largely grants-fueled art cinema of the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s to the largely consumer-fueled popular cinema of the early twenty-first century has created both opportunities and difficulties in the use of film in teaching history, both within West Africa and in the global north.