The Shattered Gourd

The Shattered Gourd PDF Author: Okediji
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295802503
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The Shattered Gourd uses the lens of visual art to examine connections between the United States and the Yoruba region of western Nigeria. In Yoruba legend, the sacred Calabash of Being contained the Water of Life; when the gourd was shattered, its fragments were scattered over the ground, death invaded the world, and imperfection crept into human affairs. In more modern times, the shattered gourd has symbolized the warfare and enslavement that culminated in the black diasporas. The "re-membering" of the gourd is represented by the survival of people of African origin all over the Americas, and, in this volume, by their rediscovery of African art forms on the diaspora soil of the United States. Twentieth-century African American artists employing Yoruba images in their work have gone from protest art to the exploration and celebration of the self and the community. But because the social, economic, and political context of African art forms differs markedly from that of American culture, critical contradictions between form and meaning often appear in African American works that use African forms. In this book -- the first to treat Yoruba forms while transcending the conventional emphasis on them as folk art, focusing instead on the high art tradition -- Moyo Okediji uses nearly four dozen works to illustrate a broad thematic treatment combined with a detailed approach to individual African and African American artists. Incorporating works by such artists as Meta Warrick Fuller, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas, Elizabeth Catlett, Ademola Olugebefola, Paul Keene, Jeff Donaldson, Howardena Pindell, Muneer Bahauddeen, Michelle Turner, Michael Harris, Winnie Owens-Hart, and John Biggers, the author invites the reader to envision what he describes as "the immense possibilities of the future, as the twenty-first century embraces the twentieth in a primal dance of the diasporas," a future that heralds the advent of the global as a distinct movement in art, beyond postmodernism.

The Shattered Gourd

The Shattered Gourd PDF Author: Okediji
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295802503
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Shattered Gourd uses the lens of visual art to examine connections between the United States and the Yoruba region of western Nigeria. In Yoruba legend, the sacred Calabash of Being contained the Water of Life; when the gourd was shattered, its fragments were scattered over the ground, death invaded the world, and imperfection crept into human affairs. In more modern times, the shattered gourd has symbolized the warfare and enslavement that culminated in the black diasporas. The "re-membering" of the gourd is represented by the survival of people of African origin all over the Americas, and, in this volume, by their rediscovery of African art forms on the diaspora soil of the United States. Twentieth-century African American artists employing Yoruba images in their work have gone from protest art to the exploration and celebration of the self and the community. But because the social, economic, and political context of African art forms differs markedly from that of American culture, critical contradictions between form and meaning often appear in African American works that use African forms. In this book -- the first to treat Yoruba forms while transcending the conventional emphasis on them as folk art, focusing instead on the high art tradition -- Moyo Okediji uses nearly four dozen works to illustrate a broad thematic treatment combined with a detailed approach to individual African and African American artists. Incorporating works by such artists as Meta Warrick Fuller, Hale Woodruff, Aaron Douglas, Elizabeth Catlett, Ademola Olugebefola, Paul Keene, Jeff Donaldson, Howardena Pindell, Muneer Bahauddeen, Michelle Turner, Michael Harris, Winnie Owens-Hart, and John Biggers, the author invites the reader to envision what he describes as "the immense possibilities of the future, as the twenty-first century embraces the twentieth in a primal dance of the diasporas," a future that heralds the advent of the global as a distinct movement in art, beyond postmodernism.

SoulStirrers

SoulStirrers PDF Author: H. Ike Okafor-Newsum
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626746370
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
In SoulStirrers, H. Ike Okafor-Newsum describes the birth and development of an artistic movement in Cincinnati, Ohio, identified with the Neo-Ancestral impulse. The Neo-Ancestral impulse emerges as an extension of the Harlem Renaissance, the Negritude Movement, and the Black Arts Movement, all of which sought to re-represent the “primitive” and “savage” Black and African in new terms. Central to the dominant racial framework has always been the conception that the Black subject was not only inferior, but indeed incapable of producing art. The Neo-Ancestral impulse posed a challenge to both existing form and content. Like its intellectual antecedents, the movement did not separate art from life and raised a central question, one that the “soul stirrers” of Cincinnati are engaging in their artistic productions. Okafor-Newsum defines collapsing of the sacred and the profane as a central tendency of African aesthetics, transformed and rearticulated here in the Americas. In this volume, the artistic productions ask readers to consider the role of those creating and viewing this art by attempting to shift the way in which we view the ordinary. The works of these artists, therefore, are not only about the survival of African-derived cultural forms, though such remains a central effect of them. These extraordinary pieces, installations, and movements consistently refer to the cultural reality of the Americas and the need for political and intellectual transformation. They constitute important intellectual interventions that serve as indispensable elements in the redefinition and reinterpretation of our society. Featuring numerous color illustrations and profiles of artists, this volume reveals exciting trends in African American art and in the African diaspora more broadly.

African Renaissance

African Renaissance PDF Author: M Okediji
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
African Renaissance: New Forms, Old Images in Yoruba Art describes, analyzes, and interprets the historical and cultural contexts of an African art renaissance using the twentieth- and twenty-first-century transformation of ancient Yoruba artistic heritage. Juxtaposing ancient and contemporary Yoruba art, Moyo Okediji defines this art history through the lens of colonialism, an experience that served to both destroy ancient art traditions and revive Yoruba art in the twentieth century. With vivid reproductions of paintings, prints, and drawings, Okediji describes how Yoruba art has replenished and redefined itself. Okediji groups the text into several broadly overlapping periods that intricately detail the journey of Yoruba art and artists: first through oppression by European colonialism, then the attainment of Nigeria’s independence and the new nation’s subsequent military coup, and ending with present-day native Yoruban artists fleeing their homeland.

The Lost Voyage of John Cabot

The Lost Voyage of John Cabot PDF Author: Henry Garfield
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439116555
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
1498. Sebastian Cabot age fifteen, can only wait and wonder. His famous father has abandoned him at home in Bristol, England, but has taken the boy's older and younger brothers, Ludovico and Sancio, on his second voyage in search of the Asian mainland. On his first journey, sailing north across the Western Ocean in 1497, John Cabot had discovered the New Found Land. He returned to England a hero. Five years earlier, Spain had given Christopher Columbus a similar welcome. He had found Asia, he claimed. And by a southern route. Cabot was skeptical and set out to the north again to prove his old friend a fraud. But silence followed. Now, Sebastian and history are confronted with a tantalizing mystery. What has become of Cabot's second endeavor? Letters to the boy from fourteen-year-old Sancio tell of a fearsome storm and its aftermath. They, and the surprising climax to Sebastian's and Sancio's shared story, make for unforgettable voyaging.

Blood Moon Broken

Blood Moon Broken PDF Author: JL Titus
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
ISBN: 1682138526
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Christmas Eve is very different this year in Atlanta, Georgia. The serial killer dubbed as “The Horseman” has been slicing a bloody path through the beautiful capital of Georgia. However, there is more to the story. The “Horseman” may be responsible for over fifty murders where each victim has been beheaded—and the heads never found. This includes a past secretary of state, which prompts calls to be made at the highest levels of law enforcement, the formation of a special task force headed by the FBI and the recruitment of CIA Agent, Jedadiah Flynn who sometimes is “loaned out” to the FBI on particularly bizarre cases. Everyone seems to have secrets and Flynn’s involvement with the daughter of one of the victims makes things personal. Especially when the biggest secret of all is revealed on Christmas Eve. And just what is the organization known as “The 34”?

Vigilant Things

Vigilant Things PDF Author: David Todd Doris
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
"Throughout southwestern Nigeria, Yoruba men and women create objects called ààlè to protect their properties from the ravages of thieves. Ààlè are objects of such unassuming appearance that a non-Yoruba viewer might not register their important presence in the Yoruba visual landscape. David T. Doris argues that ààlè are keys to understanding how images function in Yoruba social and cultural life."--Publisher description.

Noble Savages

Noble Savages PDF Author: Napoleon A. Chagnon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684855119
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
Biography.

So Bright a Darkness

So Bright a Darkness PDF Author: Iweka, Chidubem
Publisher: Kraft Books
ISBN: 9789181558
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Okafor ran wildly through the jungle, the phantom captain and his ghoulish platoon in hot pursuit. The faster he ran the more they gained on him. The earth suddenly became marshy and slippery under his feet, impeding speed and balance. He came to an intersection where the jungle paths crossed and saw a mound of earth about four feet high. Just beyond the mound stood a giant Iroko tree. Intuitively, he knew that if he jumped over the mound and quickly climbed up the tree, the ghostly captain and his soldiers would lose him. Eons merge in interstellar whirls. Realism, science fiction and fantasy fuse to drive this drama of transition, cross civilisation and self-discovery

The African Diaspora and the Disciplines

The African Diaspora and the Disciplines PDF Author: Tejumola Olaniyan
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253354641
Category : African diaspora
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Focusing on the problems and conflicts of doing African diaspora research from various disciplinary perspectives, these essays situate, describe, and reflect on the current practice of diaspora scholarship. Tejumola Olaniyan, James H. Sweet, and the international group of contributors assembled here seek to enlarge understanding of how the diaspora is conceived and explore possibilities for the future of its study. With the aim of initiating interdisciplinary dialogue on the practice of African diaspora studies, they emphasize learning from new perspectives that take advantage of intersections between disciplines. Ultimately, they advocate a fuller sense of what it means to study the African diaspora in a truly global way.

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller PDF Author: Oliver Darkshire
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1324092084
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Instant National Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award "Witty, literary and very funny." —Minneapolis Star Tribune Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice. Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives—where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one. By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world’s oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.