African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
327 p., These 107 tales come from the canefields of the antebellum South, the villages of Caribbean islands, and the streets of contemporary Philadelphia. They includes stories set down in travelers' reports and plantation journals from the early 19th century, tales gathered by collectors such as Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston, and narratives tape-recorded by Roger Abrahams himself during extensive expeditions throughout the American South and the Caribbean.
Wintersteen,Benjamin (Author) and Browne,Katherine E. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2010
Published:
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
136 p., Examines the religious, mythological and performance elements of the Afro-Caribbean street festival. Using the theories of performance, political economy and symbolic analysis, this work shows how elements of African, European and South American cultures interact to produce a unique understanding of the colonial and post-colonial experience.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
251 p., Chapters: African and Afro-Cuban factors in the structure of Lydia Cabrera's black short stories -- The characters : gods, animals, humans, supernatural beings and objects -- The theme of the waters.
Focuses on African American and Afro-Hispanic literature and folklore. Employs Fernando Ortiz's theory of transculturation. Ortiz makes the case that a new Afro-Cuban identity is created with the intermingling of African, Spanish and native inhabitants of Cuba. Using Ortiz's critical framework as the foundation of this study, critiques of Zora Neale Hurston's portrayal of African American identity. Examines the parallel between her work and that of Lydia Cabrera, a Cuban ethnographer whose work represents Afro-Cuban identity as a transcultural one.
Dantas,Beatriz Góis (Author) and Berg,Stephen (Translator)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
198 p., Compares the formation of religious traditions and ethnic identities in the Brazilian states of Sergipe and Bahia, revealing how they diverged from each other due to their different social and political contexts and needs.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
284 p., An anthropological study of music as social activism and postcolonial identity development. The research for this dissertation was conducted in Trinidad and Tobago during an extended period of fieldwork from August 2003-February 2005, and during subsequent research trips from 2005 through 2008. This dissertation is a social history of the evolution of rapso, a genre of music that is heavily oriented toward poetic lyrics that advocate for social justice and the upliftment of the oppressed in Trinidad and Tobago. Grounded in oral and archival history and performance analysis, this study addresses the complex interconnections between the political economy of cultural production in Trinidad and Tobago, the politics of racial, gender, and national identity, and the individual quest for self-affirmation and meaning in life through the pursuit of artistic and activist work.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
275 p., Explores the complicated post-colonial infrastructure of Caribbean society and life as an African American through the work of Erna Brodber. Brodber's novels "Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home," "MYAL," and "Louisiana" all explore various facets of the Caribbean and African American experiences. The author traces nuances of the Caribbean psyche, the importance of matriarchs, traditional slave dances, obeahs, Santeria and other African-based religious expressions, as well as politics and history.
