Indian Summer School: Rouch in New England

In 1977, Jean Rouch visited New York to show his films at the first Margaret Mead Film Festival. Later, he returned to the United States to make his ciné-portrait of Mead, and he was invited to teach film workshops in the Boston area. He coined the term “Indian Summer School” for these programs. I taught visual anthropology with Rouch at Harvard Summer School from 1980 to 1986. America fascinated Rouch; he, meanwhile, bewildered his students. In the 1980s, Africa was remote from the consciousness of most Americans, and filmmakers of color were not empowered. Rouch’s films and cinematic inventions opened the students up to new fields, and to the possibility of seeing and representing African societies.