Sara E. Johnson – författare

Kaiso, a term of praise that is the calypso equivalent of ""bravo,"" is a fitting title for this definitive and celebratory collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, the legendary African American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Originally produced in the 1970s, this is a newly revised and much expanded edition that includes recent scholarly articles, Dunham's essays on dance and anthropology, press reviews, interviews, and chapters from Dunham's unpublished volume of memoirs, ""Minefields"". With nearly a hundred selections by dozens of authors, ""Kaiso!"" provides invaluable insight into the life and work of this pioneering anthropologist and performer and is certain to become an essential resource for scholars and general readers interested in social anthropology, dance history, African American studies, or Katherine Dunham herself. Katherine Dunham numbers among the most influential dance artists and scholars of the twentieth century. Trained as an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, Dunham combined her interest in dance and anthropology by linking the form and function of Caribbean dance and ritual to their African sources. Her research provided the core for what would become known as the Katherine Dunham Technique of Dance, which integrated African and Caribbean styles of movement with ballet and modern dance. Her career as a dancer and choreographer encompassed Broadway reviews, appearances in several films, and choreography for the New York Metropolitan Opera. Also a recognized social activist, Dunham staged several highly publicized hunger strikes, and often incorporated speeches against discrimination into her stage performances.

"The Fear of French Negroes" is an interdisciplinary study that explores how people of African descent responded to the collapse and reconsolidation of colonial life in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1845). Using visual culture, popular music and dance, periodical literature, historical memoirs, and state papers, Sara E. Johnson examines the migration of people, ideas, and practices across imperial boundaries. Building on previous scholarship on black internationalism, she traces expressions of both aesthetic and experiential transcolonial black politics across the Caribbean world, including Hispaniola, Louisiana and the Gulf South, Jamaica, and Cuba. Johnson examines the lives and work of figures as diverse as armed black soldiers and privateers, female performers, and newspaper editors to argue for the existence of "competing inter-Americanisms" as she uncovers the struggle for unity amidst the realities of class, territorial, and linguistic diversity.These stories move beyond a consideration of the well-documented anxiety insurgent blacks occasioned in slaveholding systems to refocus attention on the wide variety of strategic alliances they generated in their quests for freedom, equality and profit.

A nature trek turns dangerous when the wilderness gives up its bones…New Zealand's remote Milford Track seems the perfect place for forensic investigator Alexa Glock to reconnect with her brother Charlie, with whom she hasn't spent much time since they were kids. Their backpacking trip seems ill-fated from the start, though, when she must stop on the way to examine nine skeletons—most likely Maori tribespeople—whose graves have been unearthed by highway construction. Before she opens the first casket, a Maori elder gives her a dire warning: "The viewing of bones can unleash misfortune to the living. Or worse."Though Alexa dismisses his words as superstitious, they soon come back to haunt her as the idyllic hike takes a sinister turn. First, Charlie is aloof and resentful of the time Alexa has spent at work. Then a rock avalanche nearly carries her away as it reveals the skeletal remains of someone who has clearly been stabbed to death. When a fellow hiker goes missing and is later found dead, Alexa has all she can do to focus on the science as she investigates two murders, while trying not to become the third victim.

If you peer closely into the bookstores, salons, and diplomatic circles of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, sooner or later Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery is bound to appear. As a lawyer, philosophe, and Enlightenment polymath, Moreau created and compiled an immense archive that remains a vital window into the fragile social, political, and intellectual fault lines of the Age of Revolutions. But the gilded spines and elegant designs that decorate his archive obscure the truth: Moreau's achievements were, at every turn, predicated upon the work of enslaved and free people of color. Their labor amassed the wealth that afforded him the leisure to research, think, and write. Their rich intellectual and linguistic cultures filled the pages of his most applauded works. They set the type, dried the paper, and folded the pages that created his legacy. Every beautiful book Moreau designed contains an embedded story of hidden violence.Sara Johnson's arresting investigation of race and knowledge in the revolutionary Atlantic surrounds Moreau with the African-descended people he worked so hard to erase, immersing him in a vibrant community of language innovators, forgers of kinship networks, and world travelers who strove to create their own social and political lives. Built from archival fragments, creative speculation, and audacious intellectual courage, Encyclopedie noire is a communal biography of the women and men who made Moreau's world.

Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand: On a cliff overlooking the ocean and one of the largest gannet bird colonies in the world, American CEO Harlan Quinn has built his "Plan B"--a lavish estate, complete with an underground doomsday bunker. When the cleaning staff finds a body within, it appears the victim died of natural causes but advanced facial decomposition leaves him unidentifiable. It can't be Quinn, according to his property manager/mistress and his wife back in the states, both of whom insist that the tech mogul is in Germany on business. But the uncooperative wife will not allow the police to search the main house for signs that the billionaire was on site, and so forensic odontologist Alexa Glock is called in to identify the body via dental records. Teeth never lie; the victim is indeed Harlan Quinn. All that's left is an autopsy to determine the cause of death.But something odd in the deceased's mouth sets Alexa and the team on a new track--to find Quinn's murderer. As they work to narrow the suspect field, a second homicide--and a stolen cache of weapons from a locked room in the bunker--ramp up the investigation and the risk to Alexa's life. Will she be able to solve this particular riddle before she becomes victim #3?With cutting-edge forensic technology, a stunning setting, and a deepening relationship between Alexa and D.I. Bruce Horn, The Bone Riddle will delight science geeks, armchair travelers, and procedural buffs who like a little romance with their body count.

Alexa Glock is at a crossroads, personally and professionally.Now that DI Bruce Horne, who said he loved her, won't deny he cheated on his ex-wife, how can Alexa trust he won't cheat on her? She and her abandonment issues need some space, so she throws her hat in the ring for a position far from New Zealand: Abertay University in Scotland. Her professional crush, Dr. Ben Odden, is interested in her expertise in teeth. If he makes an offer, will Alexa bite?Meanwhile, a human skeleton has been exhumed in a quaint former gold rush town in New Zealand. A benefactor believes that the bones are that of a Chinese gold miner, and she wants to repatriate the "hungry ghost" of her ancestor to China. Alexa is called in to examine the teeth and the secrets they contain. She didn't expect to discover a hole in the skull. When another skeleton is unearthed nearby and also shows evidence of a violent death, Alexa heads to the police station to open a cold case. Then, the town's beloved school principal goes missing. Alexa is quickly recruited to assist with the search, and as she digs into both cases, the secrets she uncovers make her dangerously unpopular with those who want to keep the past buried—and perhaps Alexa along with it.

"Some say the world will end in fire.Some say in ice..."—Robert FrostAlexa Glock is teetering on a precipice, the ground threatening to open up beneath her—and it's not just the immediate peril of retrieving a long-lost hiker's skull, given up by a melting and dangerous glacier. She's spending a ski weekend with boyfriend DI Bruce Horne and his two daughters, and she couldn't be more terrified. An entire weekend trying to win over a sullen teenager and a preteen with obvious loyalties to Mom? She's more comfortable almost sliding to her death on an unstable glacier. When she indeed finds herself dangling in a crevasse waiting for the experts to rescue her, she discovers a pelvis (wearing a red Speedo!) frozen in the ice, and the heartbreaking task of identifying multiple remains and bringing closure to families begins.Once safely back on terra firma, awaiting the arrival of Bruce and his dreaded daughters, Alexa follows the smell of smoke to a nearby pizza joint which has been completely destroyed by fire. When a body is discovered in the smoldering ruins, Alexa splits her time between fire and ice, working to identify a family's long-lost loved one and the charred remains of the fire victim. Then an avalanche during a snowboard competition leaves Bruce's oldest daughter missing along with the snowboarder she's been hanging out with. As Bruce and other rescuers race to find the missing teens, evidence begins to suggest that neither the fire nor the avalanche were accidents, and that the daughter's boyfriend might have information about both...

A collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, the African American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. This edition includes scholarly articles, Dunham's essays on dance and anthropology, press reviews, interviews, and chapters from Dunham's unpublished volume of memoirs, "Minefields".