Symbolizing the Past

Symbolizing the Past PDF Author: Sandra M. Grayson
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761817277
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, & Eve's Bayou as Histories

Symbolizing the Past

Symbolizing the Past PDF Author: Sandra M. Grayson
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780761817277
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, & Eve's Bayou as Histories

Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá

Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá PDF Author: ʼWande Abimbọla
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ifa
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description


Santeria Enthroned

Santeria Enthroned PDF Author: David H. Brown
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226076096
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Ever since its emergence in colonial-era Cuba, Afro-Cuban Santería (or Lucumí) has displayed a complex dynamic of continuity and change in its institutions, rituals, and iconography. In Santería Enthroned, David H. Brown combines art history, cultural anthropology, and ethnohistory to show how Africans and their descendants have developed novel forms of religious practice in the face of relentless oppression. Focusing on the royal throne as a potent metaphor in Santería belief and practice, Brown shows how negotiation among ideologically competing interests have shaped the religion's symbols, rituals, and institutions from the nineteenth century to the present. Rich case studies of change in Cuba and the United States, including a New Jersey temple and South Carolina's Oyotunji Village, reveal patterns of innovation similar to those found among rival Yoruba kingdoms in Nigeria. Throughout, Brown argues for a theoretical perspective on culture as a field of potential strategies and "usable pasts" that actors draw upon to craft new forms and identities—a perspective that will be invaluable to all students of the African Diaspora. American Acemy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (Analytical-Descriptive Category)

Our African Unconscious

Our African Unconscious PDF Author: Edward Bruce Bynum
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 164411397X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
• Examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul of Africa, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious • Draws on archaeology, DNA research, history, and depth psychology to reveal how the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science came out of Africa • Explores the reflections of our African unconscious in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern psychospirituality The fossil record confirms that humanity originated in Africa. Yet somehow we have overlooked that Africa is also at the root of all that makes us human--our spirituality, civilization, arts, sciences, philosophy, and our conscious and unconscious minds. In this extensive look at the unfolding of human history and culture, Edward Bruce Bynum reveals how our collective unconscious is African. Drawing on archaeology, DNA research, depth psychology, and the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science, he demonstrates how all modern human beings, regardless of ethnic or racial categorizations, share a common deeper identity, both psychically and genetically--a primordial African unconscious. Exploring the beginning of early religions and mysticism in Africa, the author looks at the Egyptian Nubian role in the rise of civilization, the emergence of Kemetic Egypt, and the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious. Revealing the spiritual and psychological ramifications of our shared African ancestry, the author examines its reflections in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern Black spirituality, which arose from African diaspora religion and philosophy. By recognizing our shared African unconscious--the matrix that forms the deepest luminous core of human identity--we learn that the differences between one person and another are merely superficial and ultimately there is no real separation between the material and the spiritual.

African Values, Ethics, and Technology

African Values, Ethics, and Technology PDF Author: Beatrice Dedaa Okyere-Manu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030705501
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This book charts technological developments from an African ethical perspective. It explores the idea that while certain technologies have benefited Africans, the fact that these technologies were designed and produced in and for a different setting leads to conflicts with African ethical values. Written in a simple and engaging style, the authors apply an African ethical lens to themes such as: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the moral status of technology, technology and sexual relations, and bioethics and technology.

A Short History of African Philosophy, Second Edition

A Short History of African Philosophy, Second Edition PDF Author: Barry Hallen
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253003482
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
A Short History of African Philosophy discusses major ideas, figures, and schools of thought in philosophy in the African context. While drawing out critical issues in the formation of African philosophy, Barry Hallen focuses on recent scholarship and relevant debates that have made African philosophy critical to understanding the rich and complex cultural heritage of the continent. This revised edition expands the historical perspective, takes account of recent discoveries and new canonical figures, highlights new discussions about gender as a cultural and philosophical phenomenon, clarifies issues regarding indigenous cultures and human rights, and builds on the notion that African philosophy shares methods and concerns of philosophy worldwide. This short reference is an essential resource for students, scholars, and general readers.

Sex and the Empire That Is No More

Sex and the Empire That Is No More PDF Author: J. Lorand Matory
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1571813071
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
This historical anthropology narrates how the traditions of Sango and Ogun are carried into and participate in the post-independence political and economical developments, and how they relate to contemporary Islamic and Christian religious streams.

African Oral Literature

African Oral Literature PDF Author: Isidore Okpewho
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253207104
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
". . . its pages come alive with wonderful illustrative material coupled with sensitve and insightful commentary." —Reviews in Anthropology " . . . the scope, breadth, and lucidity of this excellent study confirm that Okpewho is undoubtedly the most important authority writing on African oral literature right now . . . " —Research in African Literatures "Truly a tour de force of individual scholarship . . . " —World Literature Today " . . . excellent . . . " —African Affairs " . . . a thorough synthesis of the main issues of oral literature criticism, as well as a grounding in experienced fieldwork, a wide-ranging theoretical base, and a clarity of argument rare among academics." —Multicultural Review "This is a breathtakingly ambitious project . . . " —Harold Scheub " . . . a definitive accounting of the evidence of living oral traditions in Africa today. Professor Okpewho's authority as an expert in this important new field is unrivaled." —Gregory Nagy "Isidore Okpewho's African Oral Literature is a marvelous piece of scholarship and wide-ranging research. It presents the most comprehensive survey of the field of oral literature in Africa." —Emmanuel Obiechina " . . . a tour de force of scholarship in which Okpewho casts his net across the African continent, searching for its verbal forms through voluminous recent writings and presents African oral literature in a new voice, proclaiming the literariness of African folklore." —Dan Ben-Amos "This is an outstanding book by a scholar whose work has already influenced how African literature should be conceived. . . . Professor Okpewho is a scholar with a special talent to nurture scholarship in others. After this work, African literature will never be the same." —Mazisi Kunene Isidore Okpewho, for many years Professor of English at the University of Ibadan, is one of the handful of African scholars who has facilitated the growth of African oral literature to its status today as a literary enterprise concerned with the artistic foundations of human culture. This comprehensive critical work firmly establishes oral literature as a landmark of high artistic achievement and situates it within the broader framework of contemporary African culture.

Black Literature and Literary Theory

Black Literature and Literary Theory PDF Author: Henry Louis Gates, Jr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134838417
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
The imaginative literature of African and Afro-American authors writing in Western languages has long been seen as standing outside the Western literary canon. In fact, however, black literature not only has a complex formal relation to that canon, but tends to revise and reflect Western rhetorical strategies even more than it echoes black vernacular literary forms. This book, first published in 1984, is divided into two sections, thus clarifying the nature of black literary theory on the one hand, and the features of black literary practice on the other. Rather than merely applying contemporary Western theory to black literature, these critics instead challenge and redefine the theory in order to make fresh, stimulating comments not only on black criticism and literature but also on the general state of criticism today.

Black Critics and Kings

Black Critics and Kings PDF Author: Andrew Apter
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226023427
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
How can we account for the power of ritual? This is the guiding question of Black Critics and Kings, which examines how Yoruba forms of ritual and knowledge shape politics, history, and resistance against the state. Focusing on "deep" knowledge in Yoruba cosmology as an interpretive space for configuring difference, Andrew Apter analyzes ritual empowerment as an essentially critical practice, one that revises authoritative discourses of space, time, gender, and sovereignty to promote political—-and even violent—-change. Documenting the development of a Yoruba kingdom from its nineteenth-century genesis to Nigeria's 1983 elections and subsequent military coup, Apter identifies the central role of ritual in reconfiguring power relations both internally and in relation to wider political arenas. What emerges is an ethnography of an interpretive vision that has broadened the horizons of local knowledge to embrace Christianity, colonialism, class formation, and the contemporary Nigerian state. In this capacity, Yoruba òrìsà worship remains a critical site of response to hegemonic interventions. With sustained theoretical argument and empirical rigor, Apter answers critical anthropologists who interrogate the possibility of ethnography. He reveals how an indigenous hermeneutics of power is put into ritual practice—-with multiple voices, self-reflexive awareness, and concrete political results. Black Critics and Kings eloquently illustrates the ethnographic value of listening to the voice of the other, with implications extending beyond anthropology to engage leading debates in black critical theory.