African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
330 p., Explores the impact of the great Orishas (Yoruba: "deities") of the crossroads, Eshu-Elegguá , on the thriving literary and visual arts of the African diaspora. Eshu-Elegguá are multiple figures who work between physical and spiritual realms, open possibilities, and embody unpredictability and chance. Analyzes the texts Mumbo Jumbo (Ismael Reed, 1972), Sortilégio: Mistério Negro (Abdias do Nasicmento, 1951), Chago de Guisa (Gerardo Fulleda León, 1988), Brown Girl in the Ring (Nalo Hopkinson, 1998), Midnight Robber (Nalo Hopkinson, 2000), and Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966). The objective is to explore the aesthetic codes and philosophies that the figures of Eshu-Elegguá carry into the texts; trace their voices across multiple forms of cultural expression; and navigate the dialogues that these intermediary figures open between a group of literary texts that have not yet been studied together.
An essay is presented which discusses the religious history and identity of the Caribbean Area and Africa from the Haitian Revolution through the 2010s, with a particular focus on Islam and voodooism. African and Caribbean identities, including the role that cosmopolitanism plays in identity formation, are discussed. An overview of the religious identity of the Muslim Haitian Revolution leader Dutty Boukman is provided.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Journal Title Details:
15.0 Boxes
Notes:
"The collection is rich with documentation on languages, folklore, and music from the Caribbean and West Africa. Research materials regarding African American dialects and language are also extensively covered in the collection. Slides from her trips to Ghana and the Caribbean (West Indies) can be found in box 6. Course materials and research notes are found throughout the collection. Audiocassettes and reels containing over 92 hours of dialect, folklore and folk song recordings from Africa and the Caribbean are located in box 2 and 7. Lastly, an extensive book collection is included in the donation." (Amistad Research Center)
178 p., This dissertation is about the role that conservative religious notions of racial ideology played in the historical origins of black nationalism and pan-Africanism. Focuses on the writings of an African Caribbean, Edward Blyden, as the centerpiece of the study. Blyden, a native of Saint Thomas (Virgin Islands) and considered one of the "fathers" of both pan-Africanism and African nationalism, was a particularly complex diasporic intellectual. Traveling first to the United States in the pre-Civil War period, then to Africa and Britain at the height of the European imperial venture - and Christian missionary efforts - Blyden served as a conduit between the West (the United States and Britain) and both a traditional and a Muslim Africa. He saw his role as one of mediating (critiquing/translating) these divergent voices and ideologies with the object of constituting a "modern," pan-African subject.
Greenfield,Sidney M. (Author) and Droogers,A. F. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2001
Published:
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
232 p, Contents: Recovering and reconstructing syncretism / André Droogers, Sidney M. Greenfield -- A Yoruba healer as syncretic specialist: herbalism, rosicrucianism and the Babalawo / Frank A. Salamon -- Population growth, industrialization and the proliferation of syncretized religions in Brazil / Sidney M. Greenfield -- Ethnicity, purity, the market and syncretism in Afro-Brazilian cults / Roberto Motta -- Religious syncretism in an Afro-Brazilian cult house / Sergio F. Ferretti -- The presence of non-African spirits in an Afro-Brazilian religion: a case of Afro-Amerindian syncretism? / Mundicarmo M.R. Ferretti -- The reinterpretation of Africa: convergence and syncretism in Brazilian Candomblé / Sidney M. Greenfield -- Possession and syncretism: spirits as mediators in modernity / Inger Sjørslev -- Joana's story: syncretism at the actor's level / André Droogers -- Ragga cowboys: country and western themes in Rastafarian-inspired Reggae music / Werner Zips -- Polyvocality and constructions of syncretism in Winti / Ineke van Wetering -- Seeking syncretism: the case of Sathya Sai Baba / Morton Klass
