Humor and Violence

Z. S. Strother is Riggio Professor of African Art at Columbia University. She is author of Inventing Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende, winner of the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/faculty/Strother.html

"This work should be of great interest to students, scholars, and a general audience interested in African visual culture."—African Arts"Z. S. Strother does not shy away from difficult and controversial topics, whether European or Congolese. In the complicated story that covers issues of colonialism, greed, multiple cultures, and over 100 years of history, she produces a remarkably readable and accessible volume."—Elisabeth Cameron, editor of Portraiture and Photography in Africa"Original and provocative, it offers a revealing and compelling analysis and interpretation of representations of humor and violence—two cultural forms of expression that are almost impossible to put into words. A rich and rewarding work that will sustain thoughtful reflection."—Henry John Drewal, editor of Sacred Waters"Perceptive, nuanced, and sensitive to change over time and place, Zoe Strother's Humor and Violence is laugh-out-loud funny. In this dazzling array of art, Europeans constitute a cultural category—people who perform an identity of yappy little dogs and drunkenness—but, most fundamentally, of violence. Here are rape, murder, torture, and forced labor; here is the humor of tragic parody, defiance, and healing. Strother's superb close reading of the art together with her careful dating for historical context and unblinking truth-telling make this an extraordinarily valuable work, an essential contribution to cultural history as well as art history."—Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People"This well-written, meticulously researched study will be valuable to all who are interested in African arts."—Choice"Humor and Violence is an excellent book of art historical scholarship and a pleasure to read."—African Studies Review"Strother's expertise, notably, the "reading" of objects as texts is both highly compelling and thought-provoking, and ultimately, herein lies the book's strength. It is well written in accessible narrative style lavishly accompanied by color and black-and-white photographs, together with hand-drawn sketches. This book will no doubt find itself on the bookshelves of those interested in African art."—African Studies Quarterly" Humor and Violence's depth of research and radical interdisciplinarity is breathtaking."—The Art Bulletin

• AcknowledgmentsPreface1. Introduction2. Warning! What do you see? A white man? Or an over-dressed one?3. New Commodities on the Loango Coast (1840-1880)4. Depictions of Human Trafficking on Loango Ivories in the 1880s5. Humor in the Hygiene of Power (ca. 1885-1915)6. By Congolese, for Congolese (1910s-40s) 7. The African Victim in the Congolese Imaginary (1950s-1997)Coda: Congolese Perspectives on Humor and RedemptionNotes BibliographyIndex