An overview of choral activity in Latin America, including cathedrals, missions (particularly Jesuit missions), and musical centers such as the Escuela de Chacao in Venezuela and the Escola Mineira in Brazil. The 20th century witnessed a renaissance of choral music, along with the development of national conservatories and a variety of choral institutions. A regional survey highlights some of the activities in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico; the Caribbean region, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic; and the Andean region, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chili, and Uruguay. Composers have been inspired by the burgeoning choral ensembles, writing music that may use contemporary compositional techniques, popular music, folk music, as well as arranging popular music for choirs.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
212 p., Analysis of Canadian and US democracy promotion in the Americas, with a focus on Haiti, Peru, and Bolivia in particular. The main argument is that democracy promotion is typically formulated to advance commercial, geopolitical and security objectives that conflict with a genuine commitment to democratic development. Includes chapter "Polyarchy at any cost in Haiti."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
266 p, This study spans several linguistic areas of the Caribbean and parts of the Atlantic coast of the U.S., Mexico, and South America; it examines historical, national, popular, parading, sacred, and combat dances to reveal both meanings and consequences of performance. Beyond unfolding important physical and cultural significances of each genre, the analyses deepen to understand core motivations for African diaspora performance; the results are transcendence, resilience, and citizenship among dancing and music-making participants. The study repeatedly acknowledges Katherine Dunham, who began teaching the citizenship of Caribbean dance/music practices and reviews the literature since her original trilogy on Caribbean dance practices. Analyses also place local Caribbean dances as viable commodities within crucial Caribbean tourism and both cultural and economic globalization.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
307 p, Contents: On diaspora and the Akan in the Americas -- Quest for the river, creation of the path: Akan cultural development to the sixteenth century -- History and meaning in Akan societies, 1500-1800 -- The most unruly: the Akan in Danish and Dutch America -- The antelope (adowa) and the elephant (esono): the Akan in the British Caribbean -- All of the Coromantee country: the Akan diaspora in North America -- Diaspora discourses : Akan spiritual praxis and the claims of cultural idenitity
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
231 p., Contents: Introduction -- Genocide in the African diaspora : Brazil, United States, and the imperatives of holistic analysis and political method -- The inner city and the favela : transnational black politics -- Hypersegregation and revolt : the Los Angeles black ghetto in historical perspective -- The Los Angeles Times' coverage of the 1992 rebellion : still burning matters of race and justice -- Hyperconsciousness of race and its negation : the dialectic of white supremacy in Brazil -- When a favela dared to become a condominium : challenging Brazilian apartheid -- Black radical becoming : the revolution imperative of genocide.
"This article explores the changing form of white and black racial categories in North America. It argues that this transformation is being shaped by several, relatively distinct tendencies; including anti-immigrant sentiments, anti-black racism and the identity politics of racialized populations. The discussion focuses on two aspects of this transformation. First, the identity politics of Afro-Caribbean populations is used to illustrate how immigrant experiences contest and complicate the process of black racialization; second, the racialization of Latino populations is used to illustrate how normative definitions of whiteness are being redefined. The conclusion uses these examples to discuss the need for explanations of racial stratification that can account for multiple nodes of inclusion and exclusion." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
Africans have begun to form a new diaspora in Brazil, the country with the largest concentration of Afro descendents outside of Africa. This paper aims to explore, through interviews, the various motivations and experiences of these Africans, as well as to examine the official attitude of the Brazilian authorities and that of the society at large to the new residents of this modern African diaspora.
