The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities [Library Binding]

Isidore Okpewho (Editor), Ali A. Mazrui (Editor), Carole B. Davies (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in western society is central to their identity and outlook, and those who deny that proposition. The contributors to the volume were asked to ponder the key questions underlying that controversy. Is derivation from Africa enough to account for the African presence in the New World? How did Africans manage to create a viable life for themselves after they got to the Americas? How were they able to negotiate the social, political, cultural, and other space they encountered? How successfully has their ancestral heritage co-existed with the heritage of the other peoples that history has forced them to live with? These subjects are brilliantly explored in the introductory essay by Isidore Okpewho, Carole Boyce-Davies, and Ali Mazrui.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The editorial goal of this collection, gathered from papers of a 1996 conference, is to deepen understanding of how transplanted African populations (and their descendants) interacted with the physical, cultural, and intellectual environment of the New World. This goal mandates an assessment of the survival of African origins—an ongoing debate between the Essentialist school (a strong and continuous African presence) and those advocating a more syncretic viewpoint (an African presence more mutable and interactive with the new environment). The papers present both views and draw their evidence from a variety of disciplines: art, music, literature, linguistics, history, and sociology. The thematic grouping of the papers (e.g., Race, Gender, and Image), coupled with an introduction that succeeds in the difficult task of connecting most of the presentations, makes intelligible the variety of approaches and views. Undergraduate instructors in African American history and sociology can assign selected papers to illustrate methodology and stimulate discussion. History students, for example, will profit from Joseph E. Inikori's comments on the dangers inherent in applying the word slavery to the subject peoples of Africa. Upper-division undergraduates and above." —R. T. Ingoglia, Felician College , Choice, February 2000

(R. T. Ingoglia, Felician College Choice 2000) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Isidore Okpewho was Chair of Afro-American and African Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and convener of the conference (in 1996) that gave rise to this book. Among his numerous scholarly books are African Oral Literature and Once Upon a Kingdom (both published by Indiana University Press). He is the author of three novels. His work Tides won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa in 1993. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and at the National Humanities Center.

Carole Boyce Davies is Director of African-New World Studies and Professor of English at Florida International University. She is author of Migrations of the Subject: Black Women, Writing Identity and coeditor of Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature; Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature; and a two-volume collection of critical and creative writing, Moving beyond Boundaries (Volume 1: International Dimensions of Black Women's Writing, Volume 2: Black Women's Diasporas).

Ali A. Mazrui is Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and author of more than twenty books. He is best known for his BBC/PBS television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage. He is also Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University and Walter Rodney Distinguished Professor at the University of Guyana.

Product Details

• Library Binding: 899 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 025333425X
• ISBN-13: 978-0253334251
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,942,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)