Afrocentrism and World Politics by Errol A. HendersonThis study presents a refined Afrocentric critique of world politics. Rejecting earlier wholesale condemnations of Eurocentrism, the author instead roots Afrocentrism in its capacity to offer itself as a worldview supportive of scientific paradigms suggesting social science theory. Arguing that African peoples_their history and humanity_are denigrated in many Eurocentric analyses, Henderson makes clear that Africans in particular, though not exclusively, must promote paradigms rooted in their own historical image and interests. The author offers kimira, an historical African-centered paradigm rooted in an analysis of cultural groups, as a distinct framework for explicating global political dynamics, and an appropriate starting point toward a new understanding of international affairs.
ISBN: 0275951278
Publication Date: 1995
Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes by Stephen HoweIn this provocative study, Stephen Howe traces the sources and ancestries of the movement, and closely analyses the writings of its leading proponents including Molefi Asante and the legendary Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop. Martin Bernal"s contribution is also assessed. Hard-hitting yet subtle and scholarly in its appraisal of Afrocentric ideas, and based on wide-ranging research in the histories both of Afro-America and of Africa itself, Afrocentrism not only demolishes the mythical "history" taught by black ultra-nationalists but suggests paths towards a true historical consciousness of Africa and its diaspora.
Achieving Blackness by Algernon AustinAchieving Blackness offers an important examination of the complexities of race and ethnicity in the context of black nationalist movements in the United States. By examining the rise of the Nation of Islam, the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the "Afrocentric era" of the 1980s through 1990s Austin shows how theories of race have shaped ideas about the meaning of "Blackness" within different time periods of the twentieth-century. Achieving Blackness provides both a fascinating history of Blackness and a theoretically challenging understanding of race and ethnicity. Austin traces how Blackness was defined by cultural ideas, social practices and shared identities as well as shaped in response to the social and historical conditions at different moments in American history. Analyzing black public opinion on black nationalism and its relationship with class, Austin challenges the commonly held assumption that black nationalism is a lower class phenomenon. In a refreshing and final move, he makes a compelling argument for rethinking contemporary theories of race away from the current fascination with physical difference, which he contends sweeps race back to its misconceived biological underpinnings. Achieving Blackness is a wonderful contribution to the sociology of race and African American Studies.
ISBN: 0814707076
Publication Date: 2006
An Afrocentric Manifesto by Molefi Kete AsanteMolefi Kete Asante's Afrocentric philosophy has become one of themost persistent influences in the social sciences and humanitiesover the past three decades. It strives to create new forms ofdiscourse about Africa and the African Diaspora, impact oneducation through expanding curricula to be more inclusive, changethe language of social institutions to reflect a more holisticuniverse, and revitalize conversations in Africa, Europe, andAmerica, about an African renaissance based on commitment tofundamental ideas of agency, centeredness, and cultural location. In An Afrocentric Manifesto, Molefi Kete Asante examinesand explores the cultural perspective closest to the existentialreality of African people in order to present an innovativeinterpretation on the modern issues confronting contemporarysociety. Thus, this book engages the major critiques of Afrocentricity,defends the necessity for African people to view themselves asagents instead of as objects on the fringes of Europe, and proposesa more democratic framework for human relationships. An Afrocentric Manifesto completes Asante's quartet onAfrocentric theory. It is at the cutting edge of this new paradigmwith implications for all disciplines and fields of study. It willbe essential reading for urban studies, philosophy, African andAfrican American Studies, social work, sociology, politicalscience, and communication.
The Black Arts Movement by James SmethurstEmerging from a matrix of Old Left, black nationalist, and bohemian ideologies and institutions, African American artists and intellectuals in the 1960s coalesced to form the Black Arts Movement, the cultural wing of the Black Power Movement. In this comprehensive analysis, James Smethurst examines the formation of the Black Arts Movement and demonstrates how it deeply influenced the production and reception of literature and art in the United States through its negotiations of the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization, and the civil rights movement. Taking a regional approach, Smethurst examines local expressions of the nascent Black Arts Movement, a movement distinctive in its geographical reach and diversity, while always keeping the frame of the larger movement in view. The Black Arts Movement, he argues, fundamentally changed American attitudes about the relationship between popular culture and "high" art and dramatically transformed the landscape of public funding for the arts.
ISBN: 080782934X
Publication Date: 2005
New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement by Lisa Gail Collins (Contribution by, Editor); Adam Gussow (Contribution by); & OthersDuring the 1960s and 1970s, a cadre of poets, playwrights, visual artists, musicians, and other visionaries came together to create a renaissance in African American literature and art. This charged chapter in the history of African American culture--which came to be known as the Black Arts Movement--has remained largely neglected by subsequent generations of critics. New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement includes essays that reexamine well-known figures such as Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, Betye Saar, Jeff Donaldson, and Haki Madhubuti. In addition, the anthology expands the scope of the movement by offering essays that explore the racial and sexual politics of the era, links with other period cultural movements, the arts in prison, the role of Black colleges and universities, gender politics and the rise of feminism, color fetishism, photography, music, and more. An invigorating look at a movement that has long begged for reexamination, this collection lucidly interprets the complex debates that surround this tumultuous era and demonstrates that the celebration of this movement need not be separated from its critique.
ISBN: 0813541077
Publication Date: 2006
Black Post-Blackness: The Black Arts Movement and Twenty-First Century Aesthetics by Margo Natalie CrawfordA 2008 cover of The New Yorker featured a much-discussed Black Power parody of Michelle and Barack Obama. The image put a spotlight on how easy it is to flatten the Black Power movement as we imagine new types of blackness. Margo Natalie Crawford argues that we have misread the Black Arts Movement's call for blackness. We have failed to see the movement's anticipation of the 'new black' and 'post-black.' 'Black Post-Blackness' compares the black avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement with the most innovative spins of 21st century black aesthetics. Crawford zooms in on the 1970s second wave of the Black Arts Movement and shows the connections between this final wave of the Black Arts movement and the early years of 21st century black aesthetics.
ISBN: 0252099559
Publication Date: 2018
The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture by Jo-Ann MorganThis book examines a range of visual expressions of Black Power across American art and popular culture from 1965 through 1972. It begins with case studies of artist groups, including Spiral, OBAC and AfriCOBRA, who began questioning Western aesthetic traditions and created work that honored leaders, affirmed African American culture, and embraced an African lineage. Also showcased is an Oakland Museum exhibition of 1968 called "New Perspectives in Black Art," as a way to consider if Black Panther Party activities in the neighborhood might have impacted local artists' work. The concluding chapters concentrate on the relationship between selected Black Panther Party members and visual culture, focusing on how they were covered by the mainstream press, and how they self-represented to promote Party doctrine and agendas.
ISBN: 9781138605923
Publication Date: 2018
Building the Black Arts Movement by Jonathan FendersonAs both an activist and the dynamic editor of Negro Digest, Hoyt W. Fuller stood at the nexus of the Black Arts Movement and the broader black cultural politics of his time. Jonathan Fenderson uses historical snapshots of Fuller's life and achievements to rethink the period and establish Fuller's important role in laying the foundation for the movement. In telling Fuller's story, Fenderson provides provocative new insights into the movement's international dimensions, the ways the movement took shape at the local level, the impact of race and other factors, and the challenges--corporate, political, and personal--that Fuller and others faced in trying to build black institutions. An innovative study that approaches the movement from a historical perspective, Building the Black Arts Movement is a much-needed reassessment of the trajectory of African American culture over two explosive decades.
Harlem Renaissance by Mary Schmidt CampbellIn the 1920s, Harlem was the capital of Black America and home to an epochal African-American cultural flowering called the Harlem Renaissance. This book presents the work of the most important visual artists of the day, including Meta Warrick Fuller, Aaron Douglas and Palmer Hayden.
I Too Sing America by Wil Haygood; Carole Genshaft (Contribution by); Anastasia Kinigopoulo (Contribution by); Nannette V. Maciejunes (Contribution by); Drew Sawyer (Contribution by)Winner of the James A. Porter and David C. Driskell Book Award for African American Art History, I Too Sing America offers a major survey on the visual art and material culture of the groundbreaking movement one hundred years after the Harlem Renaissance emerged as a creative force at the close of World War I. It illuminates multiple facets of the era--the lives of its people, the art, the literature, the music, and the social history--through paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, and contemporary documents and ephemera. The lushly illustrated chronicle includes work by cherished artists such as Romare Bearden, Allan Rohan Crite, Palmer Hayden, William Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, and James Van Der Zee. The project is the culmination of decades of reflection, research, and scholarship by Wil Haygood, acclaimed biographer and preeminent historian on Harlem and its cultural roots. In thematic chapters, the author captures the range and breadth of the Harlem Reniassance, a sweeping movement which saw an astonishing array of black writers and artists and musicians gather over a period of a few intense years, expanding far beyond its roots in Harlem to unleashing a myriad of talents upon the nation. The book is published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Negritude Women by T. Denean Sharpley-WhitingThe Negritude movement, which signaled the awakening of a pan-African consciousness among black French intellectuals, has been understood almost exclusively in terms of the contributions of its male founders: Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor, and Leon G. Damas. This masculine genealogy has completely overshadowed the central role played by French-speaking black women in its creation and evolution. In Negritude Women, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting offers a long-overdue corrective, revealing the contributions made by four women -- Suzanne Lacascade, Jane and Paulette Nardal, and Suzanne Roussy-Cesaire -- who were not merely integral to the success of the movement, but often in its vanguard. Through such disparate tactics as Lacascade's use of Creole expressions in her French prose writings, the literary salon and journal founded by the Martinique-born Nardal sisters, and Roussy-Cesaire's revolutionary blend of surrealism and Negritude in the pages of Tropiques, the journal she founded with her husband, these four remarkable women made vital contributions. In exploring their influence on the development of themes central to Negritude -- black humanism, the affirmation of black peoples and their cultures, and the rehabilitation of Africa -- Sharpley-Whiting provides the movement's first genuinely inclusive history.
ISBN: 0816636796
Publication Date: 2002
The Changing Face of Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity by Mamadou BadianeThe Changing Face of Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity: Negrismo and N gritude looks primarily at Negrismo and N gritude, two literary movements that appeared in the Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean as well as in Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. It draws on speeches and manifestos, and use cultural studies to contextualize ideas. It poses the bases of both movements in the Caribbean and in Africa, and lays out the literary antecedents that influenced or shaped both movements. This book examines the search for cultural identity through the poetry of Nicolas Guill n, Manuel del Cabral, and Pal s Matos. This search is extended to the N gritude movement through the poems of L opold Senghor, L on-Gontran Damas, and Aim C saire. Mamadou Badiane further discusses the under-represented N gritude women writers who were silenced by their male counterparts during the first half of the twentieth century. Ultimately, this is a book on Caribbean cultural identity that shows it in a slippery and fluctuating zone. By demonstrating that while the founders of the N gritude movement both identified themselves as descendants of Africans and were proud to proclaim their African heritage, the members of the Antillanit and Cr olit movements see themselves as a product of miscegenation between different cultures.
The Negritude Movement by Reiland RabakaThe Negritude Movement provides readers with not only an intellectual history of the Negritude Movement but also its prehistory (W.E.B. Du Bois, the New Negro Movement, and the Harlem Renaissance) and its posthistory (Frantz Fanon and the evolution of Fanonism). By viewing Negritude as an "insurgent idea" (to invoke this book's intentionally incendiary subtitle), as opposed to merely a form of poetics and aesthetics, The Negritude Movement explores Negritude as a "traveling theory" ( la Edward Said's concept) that consistently crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean in the twentieth century: from Harlem to Haiti, Haiti to Paris, Paris to Martinique, Martinique to Senegal, and on and on ad infinitum. The Negritude Movement maps the movements of proto-Negritude concepts from Du Bois's discourse in The Souls of Black Folk through to post-Negritude concepts in Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. Utilizing Negritude as a conceptual framework to, on the one hand, explore the Africana intellectual tradition in the twentieth century, and, on the other hand, demonstrate discursive continuity between Du Bois and Fanon, as well as the Harlem Renaissance and Negritude Movement, The Negritude Movement ultimately accents what Negritude contributed to arguably its greatest intellectual heir, Frantz Fanon, and the development of his distinct critical theory, Fanonism. Rabaka argues that if Fanon and Fanonism remain relevant in the twenty-first century, then, to a certain extent, Negritude remains relevant in the twenty-first century.
ISBN: 9781498511353
Publication Date: 2015
Voices of Negritude in Modernist Print by Carrie NolandCarrie Noland approaches Negritude as an experimental, text-based poetic movement developed by diasporic authors of African descent through the means of modernist print culture. Engaging primarily the works of Aim#65533; C#65533;saire and L#65533;on-Gontran Damas, Noland shows how the demands of print culture alter the personal voice of each author, transforming an empirical subjectivity into a hybrid, textual entity that she names, after Theodor Adorno, an "aesthetic subjectivity." This aesthetic subjectivity, transmitted by the words on the page, must be actualized-performed, reiterated, and created anew-by each reader, at each occasion of reading. Lyric writing and lyric reading therefore attenuate the link between author and phenomenalized voice. Yet the Negritude poem insists upon its connection to lived experience even as it emphasizes its printed form. Ironically, a purely formalist reading would have to ignore the ways formal-and not merely thematic-elements point toward the poem's own conditions of emergence. Blending archival research on the historical context of Negritude with theories of the lyric "voice," Noland argues that Negritude poems present a challenge to both form-based (deconstructive) theories and identity-based theories of poetic representation. Through close readings, she reveals that the racialization of the author places pressure on a lyric regime of interpretation, obliging us to reconceptualize the relation of author to text in poetries of the first person.