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In this section you will find guidance on finding both print and e-books in the Library collections.
The Library holds many books and e-books by Black authors and on topics relevant to Black Studies. The best way to find these is by using Explore and doing a simple search using keywords.
You can also find relevant literature by searching or browsing the subject headings. Subject headings are like tags, or labels, which describe what the book is about. Browsing or searching the subject headings will enable you to find all the books on a particular topic. See below for guidance on how to search using subject headings.
We welcome suggestions for new books and e-books that contribute to the diversification of our collections.
Please note: UCL Library uses Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to describe and index much of UCL’s collections on Explore. While comprehensive and widely used throughout UK and US academic libraries it is recognised as largely reflecting a predominantly white, non-disabled, cis, male, western worldview. Work is ongoing to make fixes but some terminology may be offensive to library users. UCL Library is committed to addressing these issues and would welcome the thoughts of library users about any terminology used in Explore records.
Image: Selma Burke with her portrait bust of Booker T. Washington, 1935-43. New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Print books are distributed across multiple libraries and located within a range of subject collections. Contact your Subject Liaison or Site Librarian for more detailed guidance on finding Black scholarship across the print collections, but some key areas related to the study of Africa, the Afro-Caribbean, and the Black diaspora are listed below.
You can use UCL Explore to find books in UCL libraries. In Explore, you will find the location details of the materials you are looking for: library site, collection and shelfmark. An advanced search by shelfmark will allow you to browse all titles at that location.
The Main Education collection has books on the following subjects, in general and in the United Kingdom more specifically:
The Social Research collection has books relevant to Black Studies at the following classification:
The Library holds many texts on topics relevant to Black Studies in e-book format. The best way to find individual ebooks is by using Explore and searching using keywords, or by browsing the subject headings. Some larger collections are listed here.
This section lists reference works and handbooks which are a good starting point for discovering further literature.
Contemporary Black Biography by
Each volume of Contemporary Black Biography contains at least 65 full-length biographies written in an easy-to-follow prose style, ranging from 2 to 4 pages each. Arranged alphabetically, entries are divided by subheads for quick scanning. Sections cover: Portrait (as available) Date and place of birth Educational background Address Career data Memberships Awards received Detailed prose essay Complete source citations Contemporary Black Biography is not limited to coverage of only notable black Americans, nor is it restricted by a manufactured definition of contemporary. Its multinational coverage spans this century and includes rising personalities as well as groundbreakers and newsmakers in a variety of fields. Contemporary Black Biography includes four cumulative indexes: Nationality: While concentrating on U.S. figures, this title also covers important personalities from other countries. Find them listed by nationality here. Occupation: Editors focus on biographies not typically found in other sources -- an eclectic blend of well-known and well-respected educators, physicians, politicians, activists, writers, clergy, military leaders, attorneys, as well as members of the more glamorous occupations such as athletes, fashion models and actors Subjects: Events, places and organizations 01
Encyclopedia of Africa by
The Encyclopedia of Africa focuses on African history and culture with articles that cover prominent individuals, events, trends, places, political movements, art forms, business and trade, religions, ethnic groups, organizations, and countries throughout Africa.
Encyclopedia of South Africa by
This authoritative, comprehensive reference work covers South Africa's history, government and politics, law, society and culture, economy and infrastructure, demography, environment, and more, from the era of human origins to the present.
African American Dramatists: an a-z guide by
Despite their significant contributions to the American theater, African American dramatists have received less critical attention than novelists and poets. This reference offers thorough critical assessments of the lives and works of African American playwrights from the 19th century to the present. The book alphabetically arranges entries on more than 60 dramatists, including James Baldwin, Arna Bontemps, Ossie Davis, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a summary of the playwright's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. African American dramatists have made enormous contributions to the theater and their works are included in numerous editions and anthologies. Some of the most popular plays of the 20th century have been written by African Americans, and high school students and undergraduates study their works. But for all their popularity and influence, African American playwrights have received less critical attention than poets and novelists. This reference offers thorough critical assessments of more than 60 African American dramatists from the 19th century to the present.
Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era by
The Harlem Renaissance is considered one of the most significant periods of creative and intellectual expression for African Americans. Beginning as early as 1914 and lasting into the 1940s, this era saw individuals reject the stereotypes of African Americans and confront the racist, social, political, and economic ideas that denied them citizenship and access to the American Dream. While the majority of recognized literary and artistic contributors to this period were black males, African American women were also key contributors. Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era profiles the most important figures of this cultural and intellectual movement. Highlighting the accomplishments of black women who sought to create positive change after the end of WWI, this reference work includes representatives not only from the literary scene but also: -Activists -Actresses -Artists -Educators -Entrepreneurs -Musicians -Political leaders -Scholars By acknowledging the women who played vital--if not always recognized--roles in this movement, this book shows how their participation helped set the stage for the continued transformation of the black community well into the 1960s. To fully realize the breadth of these contributions, editors Lean'tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith have assembled profiles written by a number of accomplished academics and historians from across the country. As such, Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era will be of interest to scholars of women's studies, African American studies, and cultural history, as well as students and anyone wishing to learn more about the women of this important era.
The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre by
This new edition provides an expanded, comprehensive history of African American theatre, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Including discussions of slave rebellions on the national stage, African Americans on Broadway, the Harlem Renaissance, African American women dramatists, and the New Negro and Black Arts movements, the Companion also features fresh chapters on significant contemporary developments, such as the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the mainstream successes of Black Queer Drama and the evolution of African American Dance Theatre. Leading scholars spotlight the producers, directors, playwrights, and actors who have fashioned a more accurate appearance of Black life on stage, revealing the impact of African American theatre both within the United States and around the world. Addressing recent theatre productions in the context of political and cultural change, it invites readers to reflect on where African American theatre is heading in the twenty-first century.
The Cambridge Companion to the Black Body in American Literature by 
The Cambridge Companion to Caribbean Music by
The diverse musics of the Caribbean form a vital part of the identity of individual island nations and their diasporic communities. At the same time, they witness to collective continuities and the interrelatedness that underlies the region's multi-layered complexity. This Companion introduces familiar and less familiar music practices from different nations, from reggae, calypso and salsa to tambú, méringue and soca. Its multidisciplinary, thematic approach reveals how the music was shaped by strategies of resistance and accommodation during the colonial past and how it has developed in the postcolonial present. The book encourages a comparative and syncretic approach to studying the Caribbean, one that acknowledges its patchwork of fragmented, dynamic, plural and fluid differences. It is an innovative resource for scholars and students of Caribbean musical culture, particularly those seeking a decolonising perspective on the subject.
The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature by
African American literature has changed in startling ways since the end of the Black Arts Era. The last five decades have generated new paradigms of racial formation and novel patterns of cultural production, circulation, and reception. This volume takes up the challenge of mapping the varied and changing field of contemporary African American writing. Balancing the demands of historical and political context with attention to aesthetic innovation, it considers the history, practice, and future directions of the field. Examining various historical forces shaping the creation of innovative genres, the turn to the afterlife of slavery, the pull toward protest, and the impact of new and expanded geographies and methods, this Companion provides an invaluable point of reference for readers seeking rigorous and cutting-edge analyses of contemporary African American literature.
The Cambridge History of African American Literature by
The first major twenty-first century history of four hundred years of black writing, The Cambridge History of African American Literature presents a comprehensive overview of the literary traditions, oral and print, of African-descended peoples in the United States. Expert contributors, drawn from the United States and beyond, emphasise the dual nature of each text discussed as a work of art created by an individual and as a response to unfolding events in American cultural, political, and social history. Unprecedented in scope, sophistication and accessibility, the volume draws together current scholarship in the field. It also looks ahead to suggest new approaches, new areas of study, and as yet undervalued writers and works. The Cambridge History of African American Literature is a major achievement both as a work of reference and as a compelling narrative and will remain essential reading for scholars and students in years to come.
The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature: Volume 1 by
This magisterial history of African literature is an essential resource for specialists and students.
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing by
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing provides a comprehensive historical overview of the diverse literary traditions impacting on this field's evolution, from the eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on the expertise of over forty international experts, this book gathers innovative scholarship to look forward to new readings and perspectives, while also focusing on undervalued writers, texts, and research areas. Creating new pathways to engage with the naming of a field that has often been contested, readings of literary texts are interwoven throughout with key political, social, and material contexts. In making visible the diverse influences constituting past and contemporary British literary culture, this Cambridge History makes a unique contribution to British, Commonwealth, postcolonial, transnational, diasporic, and global literary studies, serving both as one of the first major reference works to cover four centuries of black and Asian British literary history and as a compass for future scholarship.
Dictionary of African Filmmakers by
Compiled by eminent Africanist film scholar Roy Armes, Dictionary of African Filmmakers is an inclusive, comprehensive treatment of films and filmmaking on the African continent. The dictionary covers African feature filmmaking from the first locally produced films to today's thriving film industry, listing 5,415 films made by 1,253 filmmakers in 37 countries. Part 1 includes information on filmmakers and provides date and place of birth, training or film experience, other creative activities, and a list of feature films produced. Part 2 presents a national chronology, filmography, and bibliography for each country producing feature films. Part 3 indexes film titles and provides translations into English or French where appropriate. This book is an essential reference tool for anyone who wants to know more about the vibrant and exciting world of African film.
The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies by
The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies brings together the most wide-ranging and up-to-date scholarship ever assembled on the colonial, postcolonial and neo-colonial condition, covering the period from 1492 to the present. The first and only reference of its kind that treats colonial processes as global and millennial Close to 400 entries offer unprecedented coverage, exploring the dynamics of European conquest from Columbus to China, and critiques of colonialism from Las Casas to Gayatri Spivak Written by an international cast of leading scholars An essential reference for scholars in a broad range of fields, including world literature, anthropology, political science, sociology, gender, feminist and queer studies, history and history of science 4 Volumes www.literatureencyclopedia.com
Icons of African American Literature by
The 24 entries in this book provide extensive coverage of some of the most notable figures in African American literature, such as Alice Walker, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston. Icons of African American Literature: The Black Literary World examines 24 of the most popular and culturally significant topics within African American literature's long and immensely fascinating history. Each piece provide substantial, in-depth information--much more than a typical encyclopedia entry--while remaining accessible and appealing to general and younger readers. Arranged alphabetically, the entries cover such writers as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and August Wilson; major works, such as Invisible Man, Native Son, and Their Eyes Were Watching God; and a range of cultural topics, including the black arts movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and the jazz aesthetic. Written by expert contributors, the essays discuss the enduring significance of these topics in American history and popular culture. Each entry also provides sidebars that highlight interesting information and suggestions for further reading. 24 alphabetically arranged entries offer substantial yet accessible information Entries cover authors and cultural topics Sidebars provide snapshots of interesting and significant subject matter
The Routledge Companion for the Global Renaissance by
This companion examines the global Renaissance through object-based case studies of artistic production from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe in the early modern period. The international group of contributors take an art historical approach characterized by close analysis of form and meaning as well as function, and a focus on questions of crosscultural dialogue and adaptation. Seeking to de-emphasize the traditional focus on Europe, this book is a critical guide to the literature and the state of the field. Chapters outline new questions and agendas while pushing beyond familiar material. Main themes include workshops, the migrations of artists, objects, technologies, diplomatic gifts, imperial ideologies, ethnicity and indigeneity, sacred spaces and image cults, as well as engaging with the open questions of "the Renaissance" and "the global." This will be a useful and important resource for researchers and students alike and will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, material culture, and Renaissance studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license
The Routledge Companion to African American Art History by
This Companion authoritatively points to the main areas of enquiry within the subject of African American art history. The first section examines how African American art has been constructed over the course of a century of published scholarship. The second section studies how African American art is and has been taught and researched in academia. The third part focuses on how African American art has been reflected in art galleries and museums. The final section opens up understandings of what we mean when we speak of African American art. This book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers, and professors and may be used in American art, African American art, visual culture, and culture classes.
The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History by
"This companion is the first global, comprehensive text to explicate, theorize and propose decolonial methodologies for art historians, museum professionals, artists, and other visual culture scholars, teachers, and practitioners. Art history as a discipline and its corollary institutions-the museum, the art market-are not only products of colonial legacies, but active agents in the consolidation of empire and the construction of the West. The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History joins the growing critical discourse around the decolonial through an assessment of how art history may be rethought and mobilized in the service of justice-racial, gender, social, environmental, restorative, and more. This book draws attention to the work of artists, art historians, and scholars in related fields who have been engaging with disrupting master narratives and forging new directions, often within a hostile academy or an indifferent art world. The volume unpacks the assumptions projected onto objects of art and visual culture and the discourse that contains them. It equally addresses the manifold complexities around representation as visual and discursive praxis through a range of epistemologies and metaphors originated outside or against the logic of modernity. This companion is organized into four thematic sections: Being and Doing, Learning and Listening, Sensing and Seeing, and Living and Loving. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, museum studies, race and ethnic studies, cultural studies, disability studies, and womens, gender, and sexuality studies"--
Routledge Handbook of African Literature by
The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed an expansion of critical approaches to African literature. The Routledge Handbook of African Literature is a one-stop publication bringing together studies of African literary texts that embody an array of newer approaches applied to a wide range of works. This includes frameworks derived from food studies, utopian studies, network theory, eco-criticism, and examinations of the human/animal interface alongside more familiar discussions of postcolonial politics. Every chapter is an original research essay written by a broad spectrum of scholars with expertise in the subject, providing an application of the most recent insights into analysis of particular topics or application of particular critical frameworks to one or more African literary works. The handbook will be a valuable interdisciplinary resource for scholars and students of African literature, African culture, postcolonial literature and literary analysis. Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138713864_oachapter4.pdf
Student Encyclopedia of African Literature by
African literature is a vast subject of growing output and interest. Written especially for students, this book selectively surveys the topic in a clear and accessible way. Included are roughly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on writers, genres, and major works. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Africa is a land of contrasts and of diverse cultures and traditions. It is also a land of conflict and creativity. The literature of the continent draws upon a fascinating body of oral traditions and lore and also reflects the political turmoil of the modern world. With the increased interest in cultural diversity and the growing centrality of Africa in world politics, African literature is figuring more and more prominently in the curriculum. This book helps students learn about the African literary achievement. Written expressly for students, this book is far more accessible than other reference works on the subject. Included are nearly 600 alphabetically arranged entries on authors, such as Chinua Achebe, Athol Fugard, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, and Wole Soyinka; major works, such as Things Fall Apart and Petals of Blood; and individual genres, such as the novel, drama, and poetry. Many entries cite works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.
Black Women in America: an historical encyclopedia by
'With 604 full-scale biographical entries (and more than 450 photographs), the engagingly written 2,267-page work promises to become an invaluable school and library tool.' --People
Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture by
The Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture is the first comprehensive reference book to provide multidisciplinary coverage of the field of black cultural production in Britain. The publication is of particular value because despite attracting growing academic interest in recent years, this field is still often subject to critical and institutional neglect. For the purpose of the Companion, the term 'black' is used to signify African, Caribbean and South Asian ethnicities, while at the same time addressing the debates concerning notions of black Britishness and cultural identity. This single volume Companion covers seven intersecting areas of black British cultural production since 1970: writing, music, visual and plastic arts, performance works, film and cinema, fashion and design, and intellectual life. With entries on distinguished practitioners, key intellectuals, seminal organizations and concepts, as well as popular cultural forms and local activities, the Companion is packed with information and suggestions for further reading, as well as offering a wide lens on the events and issues that have shaped the cultural interactions and productions of black Britain over the last thirty years. With a range of specialist advisors and contributors, this work promises to be an invaluable sourcebook for students, researchers and academics interested in exploring the diverse, complex and exciting field of black cultural forms in postcolonial Britain.
Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture by
Blacks have played a significant part in European civilization since ancient times. This encyclopedia illuminates blacks in European history, literature, and popular culture. It emphasizes the considerable scope of black influence in, and contributions to, European culture. The first blacks arrived in Europe as slaves and later as laborers and soldiers, and black immigrants today along with others are transforming Europe into multicultural states. This indispensable set expands our knowledge of blacks in Western civilization. More than 350 essay entries introduce students and other readers to the white European response to blacks in their countries, the black experiences and impact there, and the major interactions between Europe and Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States that resulted in the settling of blacks in Europe. The range of information presented is impressive, with entries on noted European political, literary, and cultural figures of black descent from ancient times to the present, major literary works that had a substantial impact on European perceptions of blacks, black holidays and festivals, the struggle for civil equality for blacks, the role and influence of blacks in contemporary European popular culture, black immigration to Europe, black European identity, and much more. Offered as well are entries on organizations that contributed to the development of black political and social rights in Europe, representations of blacks in European art and cultural symbols, and European intellectual and scientific theories on blacks. Individual entries on Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Central Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe include historical overviews of the presence and contributions of blacks and discussion of country's role in the African slave trade and abolition and its colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. Suggestions for further reading accompany each entry. A chronology, resource guide, and photos complement the text.
The Oxford Companion to Black British History by
The Oxford Companion to Black British History is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the long and fascinating history of black people in the British Isles, from African auxiliaries stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century AD, through John Edmonstone, who taught taxidermyto Charles Darwin, Mary Seacole, the 'Black Florence Nightingale', and Walter Tull, footballer and First World War officer, to our own day. It considers such key concepts as Emancipation and Reparations. It is also timely: the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority highlighted in their annualreport of December 2005 the need to give more attention to the wider teaching of black history. OCBBH brings together a unique collection of articles which provides an overview of the black presence in Britain, and the rich and diverse contribution made to British society.
The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History by
The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History represents an invaluable tool for historians and others in the field of African studies. This collection of essays, produced by some of the finest scholars currently working in the field, provides the latest insights into, and interpretations of,the history of Africa - a continent with a rich and complex past. An understanding of this past is essential to gain perspective on Africa's current challenges, and this accessible and comprehensive volume will allow readers to explore various aspects - political, economic, social, and cultural - ofthe continent's history over the last two hundred years.Since African history first emerged as a serious academic endeavour in the 1950s and 1960s, it has undergone numerous shifts in terms of emphasis and approach, changes brought about by political and economic exigencies and by ideological debates. This multi-faceted Handbook is essential reading foranyone with an interest in those debates, and in Africa and its peoples. While the focus is determinedly historical, anthropology, geography, literary criticism, political science and sociology are all employed in this ground-breaking study of Africa's past.
The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies by
The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies provides a comprehensive overview of the latest scholarship in postcolonial studies, while also considering possible future developments in the field. Original chapters written by a worldwide team of contritbuors are organised into fivecross-referenced sections, 'The Imperial Past', 'The Colonial Present', 'Theory and Practice', 'Across the Disciplines', and 'Across the World'. The chapters offer both country-specific and comparative approaches to current issues, offering a wide range of new and interesting perspectives.The Handbook reflects the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of postcolonial studies and reiterates its continuing relevance to the study of both the colonial past - in its multiple manifestations - and the contemporary globalized world. Taken together, these essays, the dialogues they pursue,and the editorial comments that surround them constitute nothing less than a blueprint for the future of a much-contested but intellectually vibrant and politically engaged field.
The Postcolonial Studies Dictionary by
This new Dictionary features a thoughtfully collated collection of over 150 jargon-free definitions of key terms and concepts in postcolonial theory. Features a brief introduction to postcolonial theory and a list of suggested further reading that includes the texts in which many of these terms originated Each entry includes the origins of the term, where traceab≤ a detailed explanation of its perceived meaning; and examples of the term's use in literary-cultural texts Incorporates terms and concepts from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, science, economics, globalization studies, politics, and philosophy Provides an ideal companion text to the forthcoming Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology, which is also edited by Pramod K. Nayar, a highly-respected authority in the field
The Routledge Companion to African American Art History by
This Companion authoritatively points to the main areas of enquiry within the subject of African American art history. The first section examines how African American art has been constructed over the course of a century of published scholarship. The second section studies how African American art is and has been taught and researched in academia. The third part focuses on how African American art has been reflected in art galleries and museums. The final section opens up understandings of what we mean when we speak of African American art. This book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers, and professors and may be used in American art, African American art, visual culture, and culture classes.
Routledge Handbook of Afro-Latin American Studies by
This Handbook provides a comprehensive roadmap to the burgeoning area of Afro-Latin American Studies. Afro-Latins include the civilization phenomenon of the African diaspora in the Americas, which developed during the period of slavery, obtaining cultural contributions from indigenous and European worlds and which today is enriched by new social configurations derived from contemporary migrations from Africa.
Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies by
This handbook offers diverse perspectives on queer Africa, incorporating scholarly contributions on themes that reflect and inflect the trajectories of queer contributions to African studies within and outside academia. The Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies incorporates a range of unique perspectives, reflecting ongoing struggles between regimes of inclusion and those of transformation premised upon different relational and reflexive engagements between queer embodiment and Africa's subjectivities. All sections of this handbook blend contributions from public intellectuals and practitioners with academic reflections on topics not limited to neoliberalism, social care, morality and ethics, social education, and technology, through the lens of queer African studies. The book renders visible the ongoing transformations and resistance within African societies as well as the inventiveness of queer presence in negotiating belonging. This handbook will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality in Africa, queer studies, and African culture and society.
Encyclopedia of Caribbean Archaeology by
Encyclopaedia of Caribbean Archaeology offers a comprehensive overview of the available archaeological research conducted in the region. Beginning with the earliest native migrations and moving through contemporary issues of heritage management, the contributors tackle the usual questions of colonisation, adaptation, and evolution while embracing newer research techniques, such as geo-informatics, archaeometry, paleodemography, DNA analysis, and seafaring simu¬lations. Entries are cross-referenced so readers can efficiently access data on a variety of related topics. The introduction includes a survey of the various archaeological periods in the Caribbean, as well as a discussion of the region's geography, climate, topography, and oceanography. It also offers an easy-to-read review of the historical archaeology, providing a better understanding of the cultural contexts of the Caribbean that re¬sulted from the convergence of European, Native American, African, and then Asian settlers.
African American Architects by
African-American architects have been designing and building houses and public buildings since 1865. Although many of these structures survive today, the architects themselves are virtually unknown. This unique reference work brings their lives and work to light for the first time. Written by 100 experts ranging from architectural historians to archivists, this book contains 160 biographical, A-Z entries on African-American architects from the era of Emancipation to the end of World War II. Articles provide biographical facts about each architect, and commentary on his or her work. Practical and accessible, this reference is complemented by over 200 photographs and includes an appendix containing a list of buildings by geographic location and by architect.
Sub-Saharan Africa by
Despite the growing interest in Africa, the continent's built environment is still largely unfamiliar in many parts of the world. The seven volumes of the Sub-Saharan Africa Architectural Guide form the first comprehensive overview of architecture south of the Sahara that does justice to the region's wealth of buildings. In 49 chapters, each focusing on one country, richly illustrated texts by more than 350 authors from Africa and across the globe come together to produce a superlative work. On the basis of 850 selected buildings and over 200 thematic articles, the continent's building culture is elucidated and contextualised. The diverse contributions paint a multifaceted picture of Africa's architecture in the twenty-first century, a discipline shaped by traditional and colonial roots as well as today's global interconnections and challenges. An introductory volume on the history and theory of African architecture provides essential background knowledge. Seven volumes in a slipcase: Vol. 1. Introduction to the History and Theory of Sub-Saharan African Architecture Vol. 2: Western Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Sahel Vol. 3: Western Africa along the Atlantic Ocean Coast Vol. 4: Eastern Africa from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa Vol. 5: Eastern Africa from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean Vol. 6: Central Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes Vol. 7: Southern Africa between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans 5,000 pictures
Africa by
Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin 20 Best Bets for Student Researchers 2002 Based on the scholarship in the acclaimed academic Encyclopedia of Africa, which is aimed at college and graduate students, this work presents Africa, from Egypt to Cape Town and from prehistoric times to the present day, in a format that is inviting to high school students. The 4-vol. set spans many disciplines with its articles on animals, foods, holidays and festivals, tribal groups, ecology, music and art, trade and the economy, geography, religion, folklore, and fossil and skeletal discoveries.
Encyclopedia of African American Education by
Each topic in this 2-volume encyclopedia is discussed as it relates to the education of African Americans. The entries provide a comprehensive overview of educational institutions at every level, from preschool through graduate and professional training, with special attention to historically and predominantly Black colleges and universities. The encyclopedia follows the struggle of African Americans to achieve equality in education-beginning among an enslaved population and evolving into the present-as the efforts of many remarkable individuals furthered this cause through court decisions and legislation.A unique appendix, "The Complete Bibliography of the Journal of Negro Education, 1932-2008," includes listings of the tables of contents and reprinted articles on segregation, desegregation, and equality.Key FeaturesHighlights individuals, organizations, and publications that have had a significant impact on African American educationIncorporates discussions of curriculum, concepts, theories, and alternative models of education that facilitate the learning processAddresses the topics of gender and sexual orientation, religion, and the mediaKey ThemesAlternative educational modelsAssociations and organizationsBiographiesCollegiate educationCurriculumEconomicsGenderGraduate and professional educationHistorically Black colleges and universitiesLegal casesPrecollegiate EducationPsychology and human developmentPublic policyPublicationsReligious institutionsSegregation/DesegregationThe encyclopedia is valuable resource for students, educators, and scholars of education-and all readers who seek an understanding of African American education, both historically and in the 21st century.
In Learning While Black and Queer, Ed Brockenbrough outlines common obstacles to educational equity for Black youth in the LGBTQ+ community and suggests ways for educators to foster the success of Black queer students. This compassionate and actionable work advances what Brockenbrough calls a queerly responsive pedagogy, which addresses the nuances of LGBTQ+ youths' learning experiences in ways that other assets-based approaches, including culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, do not. Providing evidence-based recommendations for creating educational spaces and school cultures that promote safety and belonging, Brockenbrough draws on recent empirical studies of urban Black youths aged fourteen to twenty-four who identify as LGBTQ+, as well as personal accounts of Black queer individuals and his own experiences as a secondary school teacher and teacher educator. Among other suggestions, he advocates the adoption of a queer-inclusive curriculum that covers health and sexuality, queer-affirming classrooms, and access to peer and intergenerational kinship networks for Black queer students.
What does existence mean for Black women without the anchor of humanity and the struggle to inhabit it? How can one be oneself without being human? What is it to become a fugitive from the confines of 'the human'? Humanity has always excluded Others on the basis of race and gender. What happens to people who choose to flee, following in the footsteps of those who resisted enslavement? This audacious manifesto draws on the legacies of bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis and others to consider the ways in which Black women have been excluded from, struggled to achieve and opted to reject the category of 'human'.
Through interviews, news analysis, and personal observation, Meredith D. Clark presents the first book about how Black Twitter users carved out a vital space for fast-paced, incisive commentary on Black life in America not found in the mainstream press. Since 1827, when Freedom's Journal, the first newspaper to be published by free Black men in the United States, Black folks have been making use of the media technologies available to them to tell their own stories in their own ways. In We Tried to Tell Y'all: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives, Meredith D. Clark explains how Black social media users subvert the digital divide narrative while confronting centuries of erasure, omission, and mischaracterization of Black life in 'mainstream' media.
Hortense Spillers is one of the most important literary critics and Black feminist scholars of the last fifty years. Her 1987 scholarly article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book" is one of the most-cited essays in African American literary studies. Edited by Margo Natalie Crawford and C. Riley Snorton, The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers is the first collection to take up directly how Spillers's writing on literature, culture, and theory have been signal posts to the varied and universal threads of Black thought, as well as countless other areas of the academy.
This book provides unique insights into both historical and contemporary issues that impact Black women, their families and their communities, including immigration, education, policing, domestic violence and poverty. It fills a void in sociological and feminist literature by centring the voices, lived experiences and perspectives of women of the African and Caribbean Diaspora in the UK. Through the use of research, archival materials, narrative interviews, photographs, poems and reflective conversations, the authors explore the social issues which inspired these women's action for change.
A tribute to the power of self-determined stories. This dynamic collection spotlights the relational and political desires of Indigenous, African, and Afro-Indigenous people to overcome historical genocide, displacement, and disposability in an imperialist culture and nation. Activists, organizers, and academics gather to interrogate capture, care, environmental justice, sovereignty, and resistance. Engage is an invitation to interrogate everything, a toolkit to build a future free from the harmful legacies of colonialism, racism, and genocide.
How do young Black men navigate the transition to adulthood in an era of labor market precarity, an increasing emphasis on personal independence, and gendered racism? In Brotherhood University, Brandon A. Jackson utilizes longitudinal qualitative data to examine the role of emotions and social support among a group of young Black men as they navigate a "structural double bind" as college students and into early adulthood. While prevailing stereotypes portray young Black men as emotionally aloof, Jackson finds that the men invested in an emotion culture characterized by vulnerability, loyalty, and trust, which created a system of mutual social support, or brotherhood, among the group as they navigated college, prepared for the labor market, and experienced romantic relationships.
This second volume of Black Communication Theory extends the Black communication sphere to include digital as well as non-digital modes of communication for the Black community on the continent of Africa and the Diaspora. The authors of this edition have been able to build on from the conceptualizations enshrined within the first volume and expanded it to include other Black communication contexts be they on gender, race, ethnicity, or class. Continuing the journey of populating the Black communication public and private sphere on the cyberspace as well as non-cyberspaces, this volume will provide an invaluable resource to students and researchers of Afrocentric communication theories.
Since the Age of Enlightenment, Black bodies have been sites of trauma. Drawing on anti-colonial theory, From the Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter interrogates how this has shaped understandings of Black life, Black trauma and Black responses to trauma within psychiatry and other mental health professions. Focusing on the impact of racism on the mental health of Black communities in Canada, the UK and the US, author Ingrid R.G. Waldron examines the structural inequities that have contributed to the legacy of racial trauma in Black communities.
Mamas, Martyrs, and Jezebels: Myths, Legends, and Other Lies You' ve Been Told about Black Women revisits notions of Black womanhood to include the ways in which Black women' s perceived strength can function as a dangerous denial of Black women' s humanity. This collection addresses the stigma of this extraordinary endurance in professional and personal spaces, the Black church, in interpersonal partnerships, and within the justice arena, while also giving voice and value to Black women' s experiences as the backbone of the Black family and community.
Concepts of 'race' and racism are central to British history. They have shaped, and been shaped by, British identities, economies and societies for centuries, from colonialism and enslavement to the 'hostile environment' of the 2010s. Yet state and societal racism has always been met with resistance. This edited volume collects the latest research on anti-racist action in Britain, and makes the case for a multifaceted, historically contingent 'tradition' of British anti-racism shaped by local, national and transnational contexts, networks and movements. Ranging from Pan-Africanist activism in the 1890s to mutual aid women's groups in the 1970s, from anti-racist trade union marches in Scotland to West African student groups in North East England - this book explores the continuities and interruptions in British anti-racism from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Valencia presents the most comprehensive, theory-based analysis to date on how society and schools are structurally organized and maintained to impede the optimal academic achievement of low-SES, marginalized K-12 Black and Latino/Latina students--compared to their privileged White counterparts. The book interrogates how society contributes to educational inequality as seen in racialized patterns in income, wealth, housing, and health, and how public schools create significant obstacles for students of color as observed in reduced access to opportunities (e.g., little access to high-status curricula knowledge). Valencia offers suggestions for achieving equal education (e.g., implementing fairness of school funding, improving teacher quality, and providing students of color access to multicultural education) by disrupting structural racism.
Using a Black decolonial feminist approach, this book deconstructs 'the white sambo psyche' of white European settler colonialism, which classifies the colonised and enslaved into 'sambo': a category of racial subjection and utter negation which is now so normalized that we are inured to it. Drawing on voyages both real and metaphorical Decolonizing Sambo positions itself amongst the global entanglements of white European settler colonialism, racial capitalism and contemporary culture. This cultural analysis analyses archival data, artefacts, commemorative spaces, films, children's books, and sweets to show sambo's genealogy, transculturation, fungibility, and continuation in contemporary racialising assemblages.
On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to Be Human extends Wynter's critique to human development and academic knowledge production, arguing that Black specificity can create new possibilities for Black being. Wilson Kwamogi Okello closely examines holistic development theory, aiming not to reform but to reimagine the "self" it presupposes. Taking what he describes as a multimodal and multisensory approach, Okello engages a chorus of writers, thinkers, and cultural workers to reframe Blackness as a social, political, and historical matrix, going beyond the study of Black experiences, biology, or culture. The book proposes and enacts a methodological attunement to Blackness that can guide theory, policy, and practice toward an alternative praxis for the benefit of Black living.
Out of the Sun demonstrate Esi Edugyan's commitment to seeking out the stories of Black lives that history has failed to record. In five wide-ranging essays, written with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the background, Edugyan reflects on her own identity and experiences. She delves into the history of Western Art and the truths about Black lives that it fails to reveal, and the ways contemporary Black artists are reclaiming and reimagining those lives. She explores and celebrates the legacy of Afrofuturism, the complex and problematic practice of racial passing, the place of ghosts and haunting in the imagination, and the fascinating relationship between Africa and Asia dating back to the 6th Century.
A powerful biography that presents analysis of a black working-class woman who rose from a tenement slum in intensely racialized British Guiana to become a leading anti-colonialism, workers' rights and women's liberation activist in Britain. Jessica Huntley's Pan-African Life celebrates Huntley's importance as a leading figure in the Windrush-era resistance to the multiple, racialized injustices faced by black settlers, children and communities in Britain. Claudia Tomlinson details how Huntley became the elder stateswoman of radical black activism of her era through participation in decolonization movements and actions such as the Black Parents Movement and the International Bookfair of Radical Black and Third World Books, as well as her foundational role at Bogle L'Ouverture Publications, the leading black-led, pan-African publishing house and its associated radical bookshop.
How do Black women writing speculative fiction explore the use of memory as a potential strategy for liberation? In Black Speculative Feminisms, Cassandra L. Jones looks at the writings of Octavia E. Butler, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, Rasheedah Phillips, and Nnedi Okorafor to chart those moments where characters harness, or fail to harness, the power of memory. These instances transform memory--individual and collective, bodily and archival--from passive recollection into direct or indirect social action. Taking a Black feminist approach, Jones addresses several emancipatory themes within Afrofuturism: the decolonization of time that can be found in fiction employing non-Western and non-linear expressions of time.
From 1987, when Rita Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, to 2021, when Amanda Gorman skyrocketed to celebrity status after performing during Biden's inauguration and the Super Bowl, Black women have seemingly attained secure, stable positions at the forefront of American poetry. But this prominence comes at a price. As figures like Dove and Elizabeth Alexander have become well known, receiving endorsements and gaining visible platforms from major prizes, academic institutions, and publishing houses, the underlying terms of evaluation that greet Black women's poetics often remain superficial, reflecting efforts to co-opt and contain rather than meaningfully consider new voices and styles. In Pitfalls of Prestige, Laura Elizabeth Vrana surveys how developments in American literary institutions since 1980 have shaped--and been shaped by--Black women poets.
In The Second Battle for Africa, Erik S. McDuffie establishes the importance of the US Midwest to twentieth-century global Black history, internationalism, and radicalism. McDuffie shows how cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as rural areas in the heartland, became central and enduring incubators of Marcus Garvey's Black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and its offshoots. Throughout the region, Black thinkers, activists, and cultural workers, like the Grenada-born activist Louise Little, championed Black freedom.
Black women writers and scholars have been engaged in the process of repairing and restoring history especially as it documents the experiences of Black women in America. They restore the historical record by centering women and women's stories in their poetry and fiction. These stories repair decades, if not centuries, of damage and erasure throughout American literary history. "Womb work" is one way of framing these reparative and restorative writing processes that includes both the writers of these works and the audiences/readers that engage the work. Womb Work argues that Black women's stories are essential to advancing a more comprehensive and critical understanding of American literary history. "Womb work" requires an interdisciplinary approach to Black women's literature through the lenses of the medical/health humanities.
In a society shaped by the legacies of enslavement, white supremacy, and sexism, who has the right to a voice? In this elegant essay, Djamila Ribeiro offers a compelling intervention into contemporary discussions of power and identity: the concept of "speaking place." A crucial component of conversations on race and gender in Brazil, speaking place is the idea that everyone has a social position in the world and that what we are able to say, and how it is received by others, depends on it. Ribeiro traces the history of Black feminist thought through several centuries, examining the ways that Black women have been silenced, ignored, and punished for speaking.
Narrative Wisdom and African Arts explores how historical and contemporary African arts make visible narratives rooted in collective and individual memory and knowledge. Historical works made by artists across sub-Saharan Africa during the thirteenth to twentieth centuries dialogue with contemporary works by African artists working around the globe. This is the first book to offer a comparative examination of intersections between African arts and narrative across expansive genres, cultures, periods, and contexts of patronage. More than two hundred color images explore an extensive array of media including sculpture in wood, ivory, metal, textiles, works on paper, photography, painting, and time-based media works.
From Elephant and Castle to Southwark, from London Bridge to Westminster, Black History Walks takes you to historic locations around the city of London and gives in-depth historical context for each place, illuminating the presence of Black history throughout Britain's capital city.
From application through to graduation and beyond, this book offers key insights into the workings of higher education, highlighting the structural barriers that impede progress. Challenges and recommendations are issued for the sector and wider community. This text is a witness to the tenacity and brilliance of Black students to achieve against the odds.
In Grime, Glitter, and Glass, Nikki A. Greene examines how contemporary Black visual artists use sonic elements to refigure the formal and philosophical developments of Black art and culture. Focusing on the multimedia art of Renée Stout, Radcliffe Bailey, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Greene traces the intersection of the visual's sonic possibilities with the Black body's physical, representational, and metaphorical use in art. She employs her concept of "visual aesthetic musicality" to interpret Black visual art by examining the musical genres of jazz and rap, along with the often-overlooked innovations of funk and rumba, within art historiography.
Africa Beyond Inventions is a rich critical engagement with the work of V.Y. Mudimbe. For decades, Mudimbe advanced a distinctive and erudite critical project that contributes to various bodies of knowledge in fields such as philosophy, anthropology, theology, postcolonial studies, decolonial theory, literary criticism, cultural studies, prose fiction, and African studies more broadly. A decade after his retirement and in the expansive spirit of his work, this volume stages a productive engagement with Mudimbe's remarkable and capacious body of work and the conceptual, epistemic, methodological, and ethical challenges it poses for the modern disciplines, specifically in relation to Africa.
The African Gaze is a comprehensive exploration of postcolonial and contemporary photography and cinema from Africa. Drawing from archival imagery and documents, interviews with the photographers and filmmakers (in some cases family members/close associates if the artist is deceased), and contributions from writers, scholars, and curators, it maps a comprehensive introduction to African moving and still imagery. This is a hugely important and timely publication--engagement with Black and African histories is stronger than ever before (and long overdue). The major names of African photography, such as Malick Sidibé, Sanlé Sory, and Seydou Keïta, have become highly collectible in the art market, while African cinema, pioneered by filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène in 1960s Senegal, is now recognized for its creative innovation and storytelling. For anyone drawn to African photography and film, this book will provide an exciting and accessible overview. Featuring interviews with Samuel Fosso and Souleymane Cissé.
This book presents a comprehensive exploration of Critical Race Theory, offering a clear understanding of its origins, the way it has been problematized and its potential for societal change. By examining the historical influence of imperialism and capitalism, the author critiques both liberal and conservative perspectives. Centring the voices of marginalized groups, the book highlights their position as agents of change who have been consistently rejected, ignored or attacked by both the right and the left. Providing a unique perspective on Critical Race Theory, this book is a valuable resource for readers seeking to navigate the complexities of systemic racism and how to dismantle these systems.
Features the experiences of African American artists in Nordic Europe During the twentieth century, Black Americans visited and lived in Nordic countries, performing, studying, working, and seeking adventure, love, freedom to explore sexuality, and distance from Jim Crow segregation. Drawing from film, photographs, paintings, music, textiles, and dance, Nordic Utopia captures these journeys and ultimately reflects on how some African Americans have called and continue to call Nordic countries home. Calling on voices from hip-hop artist Jason Diakité to novelist and essayist James Baldwin, this book tells how African Americans were transformed through their Nordic encounters.
Whether invisible or hyper-visible, adored or reviled, from the inception of American literature the Black body has been rendered in myriad forms. This volume tracks and uncovers the Black body as a persistent presence and absence in American literature. It provides an invaluable guide for teachers and students interested in literary and artistic representations of Blackness and embodiment. The book is divided into three sections that highlight Black embodiment through conceptual flashpoints that emphasize various aspects of human body in its visual and textual manifestations. This Companion engages past and continuing debates about the nature of embodiment by showcasing how writers from multiple eras and communities defined and challenged the limits of what constitutes a body in relation to human and nonhuman environment.
RESIST! illuminates 500 years of anti-colonial resistance in the Global South and tells about colonial violence and oppression and its continuities. The exhibition and the book about it pays homage to the people who resisted in the most diverse ways and whose stories have hardly ever been told or heard to this day. The works of over 40 contemporary artists from the Global South and the diaspora tell stories of rebellion and war, violence and trauma as well as survival and resilience. Their stories are complemented by historical documents and numerous objects from the RJM collection, silent witnesses of moments of anti-colonial resistance.
When Candice fell pregnant and stepped into the motherhood playing field, she found her experience bore little resemblance to the glossy magazine photos of women in horizontal stripe tops and the pinned discussions on mumsnet about what pushchair to buy. Leafing through the piles of prenatal paraphernalia, she found herself wondering: "Where are all the black mothers?". Candice started blogging about motherhood in 2016 after making the simple but powerful observation that the way motherhood is portrayed in the British media is wholly unrepresentative of our society at large. The result is this thought-provoking, urgent and inspirational guide to life as a black mother.
How does the concept of love fit with Black identity? When Black Lives Matter activist Marissa Johnson was pressed to address why she “hates white people”, she responded with this question: do you love Black people? This book is an exploration of the issues raised by this radical question – a refusal to centre Black identity on whiteness, a question of how love, and self-love, fit with Black identity, and a queering of how Black identity is understood. Told through autobiographical reflection, this book contains the story of one Black woman's process of iterative identity formation, grappling with the intersections of sexuality, gender, self-image, and love.
Award-winning author, scholar, and social visionary George Yancy brings together the greatest minds of our time to speak truth to power and welcome everyone into a conversation about the pursuit of justice, equality, and peace. This interwoven collection of searingly honest interviews with leading intellectuals includes conversations with Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Cornel West, Robin D. G. Kelley, and Peter McLaren. Each conversation bears witness to the weighty moment in which it was first conducted and presented by Truthout and Tikkun magazines while pointing to ramifications, future hurdles, and practical optimism for moving forward. Learning how to speak about such topics as white supremacy and global whiteness, xenophobia, anti-BIPOC racism, fear of critical race theory, and the importance of Black feminist and trans perspectives, readers will be better able to join future conversations with their peers, those in power, and those who need to be empowered to change the status quo.
A brilliant scholar imparts the lessons bequeathed by the Black community and its remarkable artists and thinkers. Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden, and many more.
In 2024, Dulwich Picture Gallery will present Soulscapes, a major exhibition of landscape art that will expand and redefine the genre. Published to coincide with this revelatory exhibition, this book features over 30 contemporary artworks, spanning painting, photography, film, tapestry and collage from leading artists including Hurvin Anderson, Phoebe Boswell, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kimathi Donkor, Isaac Julien, Marcia Michael, Mónica de Miranda and Alberta Whittle, as well as some of the most important emerging voices working today. Soulscapes explores our connection with the world around us through the eyes of artists from the African Diaspora and considers the power of landscape art through the themes of belonging, memory, joy and transformation.
In this book, the editor and her authors confront various dimensions of decolonizing work, structural, epistemic, personal, and relational, which are entangled and equally necessary. This book illuminates other sites and dimensions of decolonizing not only from Africa but also other areas. This convergence of critical scholarship, theoretical inquiry, and empirical research is committed to questioning and redressing inequality in contemporary history and other African studies. It signals one of many steps in a bid to consultatively examine how knowledge and power have been both defined and subsequently denied through the sphere of academic practice.
The Summer of 2020: George Floyd and the Resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement spotlights the perspectives of individual participants who contributed to the movement's revived impact and global success throughout 2020. Authors Andre E. Johnson and Amanda Nell Edgar interview the movement's activists-from seasoned organizers to first-time protesters-to discover what Black Lives Matter meant to those who participated in one of America's largest social movements. Johnson and Edgar's fieldwork reveals the complexity of taking a stand, especially in the face of increasing threats from white supremacist groups, continuing police aggression, and a persisting global pandemic.
A multidisciplinary illustrated reader unpacking imperialist representations of Africa by promoting dialogue, memory and everyday practice, and reimagining cultural institutions and the arts--from museums to academia, from architecture to art In 2017, curator and art historian Anita N. Bateman and architect and professor Emanuel Admassu initiated research on the traditional positioning and mispositioning of the arts across the African continent. Where Is Africa has been an extended set of exchanges with contemporary artists, curators, designers and academics who are actively engaged in representing the continent--both within and outside its geographic boundaries.
"Ungrateful." An accusation that will be instantly familiar to non-white people throughout majority-white states, levelled by everyone from online trolls to government ministers. Despite a centuries-old colonial history of exploitation, displacement, and enslavement, whiteness continues to construct itself as generous and benevolent: the brave liberators of slaves rather than their captors; the recipients of immigrants to their great lands rather than perpetrators of racist hate crimes; the protectors of the marginalised rather than the perpetrators of oppression. Natalie Wall takes readers on a journey through the tropes and narratives of white generosity, from the onset of the African slave trade to contemporary efforts to ridicule and undermine the "woke agenda."
Cultural criticism and pop culture history intertwine in this important book, which dissects how hip hop has sidelined Black women's identity and emotional well-being. A "ride-or-die chick" is a woman who holds down her family and community. Her ride-or-die trope becomes a problem when she does it indiscriminately. She does anything for her family, friends, and significant other, even at the cost of her own well-being. Her self-worth is connected to how much labor she can provide for others. She goes above and beyond for everyone in every aspect of her life--work, family, church, even if it's not reciprocated, and doesn't require it to be because she's a "strong Black woman". In this book, author, adjunct professor of sociology, and former therapist Shanita Hubbard disrupts the ride-or-die complex and argues that this way of life has left Black women exhausted, overworked, overlooked, and feeling depleted. She suggests that Black women are susceptible to this mentality because it's normalized in our culture.
In democracies, citizens must accept loss; we can't always be on the winning side. But in the United States, the fundamental civic capacity of being able to lose is not distributed equally. Propped up by white supremacy, whites (as a group) are accustomed to winning; they have generally been able to exercise political rule without having to accept sharing it. Black citizens, on the other hand, are expected to be political heroes whose civic suffering enables progress toward racial justice. In this book, Juliet Hooker, a leading thinker on democracy and race, argues that the two most important forces driving racial politics in the United States today are Black grief and white grievance. Black grief is exemplified by current protests against police violence--the latest in a tradition of violent death and subsequent public mourning spurring Black political mobilization. The potent politics of white grievance, meanwhile, which is also not new, imagines the United States as a white country under siege. Drawing on African American political thought, Hooker examines key moments in US racial politics that illuminate the problem of loss in democracy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made transparent the insidiousness of institutional anti-Black racism and its impact on Black people globally. Research and statistics suggest that COVID-19 disproportionately affects African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) people. This collection provides critical discussions on the complexities of resilience in Black communities. Specifically, it highlights the resilience of ACB people, aged 12 to 85 years from Nigeria, South Africa, Jamaica, England, Canada, and the United States, by showcasing their strengths, determination, courage, contribution, leadership, innovation, creativity, cooperation, and community involvement through the sharing of reflections, essays, stories, journals, artwork, and poetry.The authors discuss structural barriers, gender, and sexual violence, health care, education, and institutional anti-anti-Black racism candidly demonstrating their vulnerabilities and resilience.
Scripting Empire recovers the literary and cultural history of West Indian and West African writing at the BBC in order to rethink the critical mid-century decades of shrinking British sovereignty, late modernism, and mass migration to the metropole. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, a remarkable group of black Atlantic artists and intellectuals became producers, editors, and freelancers at the corporation, including Una Marson, Langston Hughes, Louise Bennett, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, Amos Tutuola, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon, Cyprian Ekwensi, Stuart Hall, and C.L.R. James. Operating at the interface of a range of literary and broadcast genres, this loose network of African Caribbean writers and thinkers prompt a reassessment of the aesthetic, formal, and political fallout of decolonization between the outbreak of World War II and the first airings of post-colonial independence.
The Conscious Cultural Worker: Counter-Narratives of Black Women Artivists as Radical Educators uses narrative inquiry and Black feminist and womanist pedagogy to look at the teaching identities and lived experiences of Black women artivist educators in the current neoliberal anti-woke moment. Their counter-narratives are presented as vignettes to look at a certain time in the lives of Black women artists who use rap, spoken word, or visual art to turn public places like bars, clubs, galleries, lounges, and alleys into unofficial educational spaces that the author calls "Communities of Reciprocity" (CoR).
The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art is the first comprehensive survey of the visual representation of people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean, some twelve million of whom were forcibly imported into the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. This second volume explores the period from the final abolition of slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the nineteenth century through the independence of the Caribbean islands to the present day. The images and essays here reveal the damaging legacy of colonialism and slavery and the vigorous efforts of Afrodescendant artists to assert their identity in the face of prejudice and denial.
A comprehensive and inspiring collection of essays by Larry Neal, a founder of the seminal Black Arts Movement. "The Black Arts Movement is radically opposed to any concept of the artist that alienates him from his community. Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept. As such, it envisions an art that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America." - Larry Neal Growing up in Philadelphia, Neal was surrounded by Bebop music and writing. He culled inspiration and teachings from Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. After studying folklore at the University of Pennsylvania, Neal became a prolific poet and critic, and he served as the arts editor for the Liberator where he published many of his essays about art. Neal encouraged artists to produce work that was not only politically engaged but also unapologetically rooted in the Black experience, and this message reverberated through African American literature, theater, music, and visual arts.
'What happens when Black artists depict Black figures? What art does this produce, and what worlds of possibility does this reveal?' - Ekow Eshun Reframing the Black Figure showcases more than 20 of the most important Black figurative artists working in the UK and US today. This visual giftbook introduces readers to the field of Black figuration by highlighting a selection of key works from the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. Readers will encounter contemporary Black artists producing beautiful, urgent artworks that presents the Black form with nuance and depth. Richly illustrated with artworks and visual details, alongside short biographies for all featured artists, this accessible publication offers an opportunity for readers to experience some of the most exciting artworks depicting the Black form. Within this context, they take on a dual role, as the accomplished work of individual artists on the one hand, and as a collective assertion of Black presence on the other.
A groundbreaking volume resituating the Harlem Renaissance as integral to the development of twentieth-century modernism Beginning in the 1920s, Upper Manhattan became the center of an explosion of art, writing, and ideas that has since become legendary. But what we now know as the Harlem Renaissance, the first movement of international modern art led by African Americans, extended far beyond New York City. This volume reexamines the Harlem Renaissance as part of a global flowering of Black creativity, with roots in the New Negro theories and aesthetics of Alain Locke, its founding philosopher, as well as the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. Featuring artists such as Aaron Douglas, Charles Henry Alston, Augusta Savage, and William H. Johnson, who synthesized the expressive figuration of the European avant-garde with the aesthetics of African sculpture and folk art to render all aspects of African American city life, this publication also includes works by lesser-known contributors, including Laura Wheeler Waring and Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr., who took a more classical approach to depicting Black subjects with dignity, interiority, and gravitas.
Immerse yourself in Africa's vast and intricate story and discover Africa's true place in world history. Spanning more than 200,000 years, from the emergence of the first humans to the rise of megacities, Africa explores the history and cultures of the world's second-largest continent in vivid detail. It brings to life the stories that shaped Africa and the world around it, from powerful and influential empires and kingdoms such as Mali and Benin, through the struggle against colonization and the fight for independence to Africa's place on the global stage today.
This book draws inspiration from the author''s own scholarship on race, anti-Blackness, Indigeneity, and anti-colonial studies to offer the personal travelogue of a Black scholar in academia. The author reflects on how he came to a critical consciousness about critical issues of race, anti-Black racism, and anti-colonial studies in the 1980s. The intersecting theme of Black scholars'' responsibility for advancing a path of Blackcentricity wedded in Black and African Indigeneities to address global anti-Black racism and anti-Blackness is an important intellectual pursuit. In the struggle for true liberation, our work for social justice, equity, decolonization, and the anti-colonial end is only possible if we embrace critical solidarity through Indigenous resistance and community building. We must all be part of an on-going struggle; those of us with the privilege of being familiar with history have a responsibility to mentor and be mentored by our young colleagues as a nurturing of the power of knowledge.
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