Examines three ‘cosmopolitan’ traditions in the Caribbean. While the first tradition derives from the universalist intellectual tradition of the European Enlightenment, the other two are linked to vernacular, local Caribbean traditions.
"While plotting out the journeys that paved the way for their creative and innovative work in Afro-Cuban and African American ethnography, this study will address their bifocal vision as insider-outsiders within the minority cultures they represent in folktales and within the 'foreign' cultures to which they traveled. Cabrera's and Hurston's roles as 'native ethnographers' will also be considered. In creating alternatives to traditional ethnographies, such as Franz Boas's Bella Bella Tales (1932), their collections can be understood as early examples of experimental and feminist ethnography." (author)
Examines the genesis of the French Antillean concept of Creolite that emerged in the 1980s and shows "how, through zouk, the popular music that emerged from Guadeloupe and Martinique in the early 1980s, Creolite is being defined, (re)presented, and negotiated." (author)
Reviews several books. A Place in the Sun? Women Writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba, by Catherine Davis; Afro-Cuban Literature: Critical Junctures,'by Edward J. Mullen; My Own Private Cuba: Essays on Cuban Literature and Culture, by Gustavo Pérez Firmat.;
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
138 p, Description and analysis of the two most important religions of African descent in Cuban spiritual life: the first of Yoruban origin; the second of Congo-Bantu origin
Feira de Santana, Bahia: Eduefs -Editora da Universdade Estadual de Feira de Santana
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
139 p, Professor Adjunto da Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, com doutorado e pós doutorado em estudos culturais, o australiano radicado na Bahia Piers Armstrong dedica-se a uma vertente culturalista que procura compreender de maneira singular as manifestações populares do estado da Bahia. Neste livro ele discute a obra de Jorge Amado, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto GIl e Carlinhos Brown, alé, de analisar vestuário, gíria, arte, costumes, publicidade e discurso político da cultura bahiana, principalmente a popular, imbricada com a questão da negritude.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
311 p., Works by Argentine and Uruguayan specialists in the study of the black population and its impact on cultural formation of the Río de la Plata intertwines. The central idea is to strengthen the dialogue and discussion on issues that were silenced by official cultures for many years.