Critical Dimensions of African Studies

Jennifer L. De Maio is professor of political science at California State University, Northridge. Suzanne Scheld is professor in the Anthropology Department at California State University, Northridge.Tom Spencer-Walters is professor emeritus of Africana studies at California State University, Northridge.

This collection from editors De Maio, Scheld, and Spencer-Walters focuses on the concept of re-membering—the act of deliberately reasserting one's membership within a given community—in order to reintroduce a series of perspectives on African studies, orality, and literacy. This concept is valuable in and of itself for the way in which it focuses attention on the individual in a type of standpoint epistemology. All in all, the text contains well-written pieces that argue for more application of critical theory to the study of Africa, and, more importantly, for the need to hear African voices in African studies. Recommended. General readers and undergraduates.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Jennifer De Maio, Suzanne Scheld, and Tom Spencer-Walters Part I: Language and the International/Transnational Lens Chapter 1: Tom Spencer-Walters: Intellectual Freedom Fighter by Selase W. WilliamsChapter 2: Terms Matter: The Use of “Tribe” in African Studies by Jennifer L. De Maio and Daniel N. PosnerChapter 3: Speaking Africa: Re-Membering Africa through Language, Culture, and Aesthetics by Sheba LoChapter 4: “Africa for the Africans” Garvey & African Transnationality: The Idea of Flexible Citizenship by W. Gabriel Selassie IChapter 5: “Back Home This Never Would Have Happened”: Imagining Tradition and Modernity Among Ugandan Pentecostals in Los Angeles by Kevin ZemlickaPart II: Humanistic Approach Chapter 6: Bumuntu Humanism and “Values Discourse”: Reflection on the Importance of African Studies in Our Tumultuous Time by Mutombo Nkulu-N’SenghaChapter 7: “Working the Past:” Memory, Language, and Echoes of Slavery in Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa by Raquel KennonChapter 8: The Power of Memory and Language: Counter-Stories as Oppositional Remembering by Renee M. MorenoChapter 9: Marché Sandaga: The Language of the Built Environment in Remembering and Re-Membering by Suzanne ScheldPart III: Critical Theory and Practice Chapter 10: Africa’s Adult Literacy Landscape in The Age of Globalization: A Path to Increased Access and Change by Daphne W. NtiriChapter 11: Remembering Africa: Memory and The Narrative Imagination in the Polio Survivor’s Experience by Rodney B. Hume-DawsonChapter 12: Reconciling Traditional and Nontraditional Approach to Mental Health Services: African Diaspora Experience by Senait Admassu, Kofi Peprah, and Edwin AimufuaPart IV: ConclusionAfterword by Tom Spencer-WaltersAbout the Contributors