Description
The African Diaspora contributes to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in Western society is central to their identity and outlook and those who deny that proposition. Contributors include Niyi Afolabi, Adetayo Alabi, Celia M. Azevedo, Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Eliana Guerreiro Ramos Bennett, LeGrace Benson, Ira Kincade Blake, Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Sharon Aneta Bryant, Michael J. C. Echeruo, Peter P. Ekeh, Patience Elabor-Idemudia, David Evans, Robert Elliot Fox, Andrea Frohne, Joseph E. Inikori, Joyce Ann Joyce, Joseph McLaren, Charles Martin, Ali A. Mazrui, Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure, Nkiru Nzegwu, Isidore Okpewho, Oyekan Owomoyela, Laura J. Pires-Hester, Richard Price, Sally Price, Jean Rahier, Sandra L. Richards, Elliott P. Skinner, Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., Keith Q. Warner, Maureen Warner-Lewis, and Kimberly Welch. |
Author Bio
Isidore Okpewho was Chair of Afro-American and African Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and convener of the conference (in 1996) that gave rise to this book. Carole Boyce Davies is Director of African-New World Studies and Professor of English at Florida International University. Ali A. Mazrui is Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and author of more than twenty books. |
Reviews
“These essays contribute to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in western society is central to their identity and outlook and those who deny that proposition. Key questions underlying this controversy are explored in 33 essays divided into five main parts: The Diaspora: Orientation and Determinations; Addressing the Constraints; Race, Gender, and Image; Creativity, Spirituality, and Identity; and Reconnecting with Africa.”
“These essays contribute to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in western society is central to their identity and outlook and those who deny that proposition. Key questions underlying this controversy are explored in 33 essays divided into five main parts: The Diaspora: Orientation and Determinations; Addressing the Constraints; Race, Gender, and Image; Creativity, Spirituality, and Identity; and Reconnecting with Africa.”
“The editorial goal of this collection, gathered from papers of a 1996 conference, is to deepen understanding of how transplanted African populations (and their descendants) interacted with the physical, cultural, and intellectual environment of the New World. This goal mandates an assessment of the survival of African origins—an ongoing debate between the Essentialist school (a strong and continuous African presence) and those advocating a more syncretic viewpoint (an African presence more mutable and interactive with the new environment). The papers present both views and draw their evidence from a variety of disciplines: art, music, literature, linguistics, history, and sociology. The thematic grouping of the papers (e.g., Race, Gender, and Image), coupled with an introduction that succeeds in the difficult task of connecting most of the presentations, makes intelligible the variety of approaches and views. Undergraduate instructors in African American history and sociology can assign selected papers to illustrate methodology and stimulate discussion. History students, for example, will profit from Joseph E. Inikori's comments on the dangers inherent in applying the word slavery to the subject peoples of Africa. Upper-division undergraduates and above.February 2000”
— R. T. Ingoglia, Felician College
“The editorial goal of this collection, gathered from papers of a 1996 conference, is to deepen understanding of how transplanted African populations (and their descendants) interacted with the physical, cultural, and intellectual environment of the New World. This goal mandates an assessment of the survival of African origins—an ongoing debate between the Essentialist school (a strong and continuous African presence) and those advocating a more syncretic viewpoint (an African presence more mutable and interactive with the new environment). The papers present both views and draw their evidence from a variety of disciplines: art, music, literature, linguistics, history, and sociology. The thematic grouping of the papers (e.g., Race, Gender, and Image), coupled with an introduction that succeeds in the difficult task of connecting most of the presentations, makes intelligible the variety of approaches and views. Undergraduate instructors in African American history and sociology can assign selected papers to illustrate methodology and stimulate discussion. History students, for example, will profit from Joseph E. Inikori's comments on the dangers inherent in applying the word slavery to the subject peoples of Africa. Upper-division undergraduates and above.February 2000”
— R. T. Ingoglia, Felician College
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction, Isidore Okpewho Part 1. The Diaspora: Orientations and Determinations 1. Michael J. C. Echeruo, An African Diaspora: The Ontological Project 2. Maureen Warner-Lewis, Cultural Reconfigurations in the African Caribbean 3. Elliott P. Skinner, The Restoration of African Identity for a New Millenium Part 2. Addressing the Constraints 4. Joseph E. Inikori, Slaves or Serfs?: A Comparative Study of Slavery and Serfdom in Europe and Africa 5. Richard Price, Modernity, Memory, Martinique 6. Peter P. Ekeh, Kinship and State in African and African American Histories 7. Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Wages of Migration: Jobs and Homeownership Among Black and White Workers in Muncie, Indiana, 1920 8. Ira Kincaid Blake, The Significance of Cognitive-Linguistic Orientation for Academic Well- Being in African American Children 9. Sharon Aneta Bryant, The Relationship of Place of Birth and Health Status Part 3. Race, Gender, and Image 10. Celia M. Azevedo, Images of Africa and the Haiti Revolution in American and Brazilian Abolitionism 11. Kimberly Welch, Our Hunger is Our Song: The Politics of Race in Cuba, 1900-1920 12. Antonio Benítez-Rojo, The Role of Music in the Emergence of Afro-Cuban Culture 13. Sally Price, The Centrality of Margins: Art, Gender, and African American Creativity 14. Eliana Guerreiro Ramos Bennett, Gabriela Cravo e Canela: Jorge Amado and the Myth of the Sexual Mulatta in Brazilian Culture 15. Patience Elabor-Idemudia, Gender and the New African Diaspora: African Immigrant Women in the Canadian Labor Force 16. Sandra L. Richards, Horned Ancestral Masks, Shakespearean Actor Boys, and Scotch-Inspired Set Girls: Social Relations in Nineteenth-Century Jamaican Jonkonnu Part 4. Creativity, Spirituality, and Identity 17. Oyekan Owomoyela, From Folklore to Literature: The Route from Roots in the African World 18. Jean Rahier, Blackness as a Process of Creolization: The Afro-E |
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