Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Contextualizing Popobawa
2. Voicing Expertise and Authority
3. Talk and Believe: How to Prevent a Popobawa Attack in Two Easy Steps
4. The Butt of a Joke
5. Queering Popobawa
6. Women as Sexual and Discursive Agents
7. Batman in Africa
8. Global Metanarratives
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Katrina Daly Thompson is Professor and Director of the Program in African Languages in the Department of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is author of Zimbabwe's Cinematic Arts (IUP).

Reviews

Popobawa joins the ranks of zombies, witches and vampire studies of Africa and proves that there is still more to say in the generative discourses of the monstrous and mysterious if we are willing to listen well.
*Journal of Modern African Studies*

A well-researched and well-documented addition to the body of knowledge on local legends and their global manifestations.
*Journal of Folklore Research*

Thompson's movement between local and global discourses demonstrates the importance of a phenomenon that could otherwise be viewed as exotic ethnographic trivia, while her theoretical orientation makes the text as relevant to linguistic anthropologists as to African studies scholars. Especially important is her understanding that marginalized individuals in Zanzibar do offer social critique.
*African Studies Review*