African Systems of Thought – serie

" . . . groundbreaking . . . clear, straightforward, and economical. . . . seminal . . . " —American Anthropologist"This is a challenging book . . . a remarkable contribution to African intellectual history." —International Journal of African Historical Studies"Mudimbe's description of the struggles over Africa's self-invention are vivid and rewarding. From Blyden to Sartre, Temples to Senghor, Mudimbe provides a bold and versatile resume of Africa's literary inventors." —Village Voice Literary Supplement" . . . a landmark achievement in African studies." —Journal of Religion in AfricaIn this unique and provocative book, Zairean philosopher and writer V. Y. Mudimbe addresses the multiple scholarly discourses that exist—African and non-African—concerning the meaning of Africa and being African.

What did it mean to be an African subject living in remote areas of Tanganyika at the end of the colonial era? For the Kaguru of Tanganyika, it meant daily confrontation with the black and white governmental officials tasked with bringing this rural people into the mainstream of colonial African life. T. O. Beidelman's detailed narrative links this administrative world to the Kaguru's wider social, cultural, and geographical milieu, and to the political history, ideas of indirect rule, and the white institutions that loomed just beyond their world. Beidelman unveils the colonial system's problems as it extended its authority into rural areas and shows how these problems persisted even after African independence.

What did it mean to be an African subject living in remote areas of Tanganyika at the end of the colonial era? For the Kaguru of Tanganyika, it meant daily confrontation with the black and white governmental officials tasked with bringing this rural people into the mainstream of colonial African life. T. O. Beidelman's detailed narrative links this administrative world to the Kaguru's wider social, cultural, and geographical milieu, and to the political history, ideas of indirect rule, and the white institutions that loomed just beyond their world. Beidelman unveils the colonial system's problems as it extended its authority into rural areas and shows how these problems persisted even after African independence.

"This volume of finely crafted case studies is also the vehicle for an important general theory of divination. . . . this is a book overflowing with ideas that will powerfully stimulate further research." —Journal of Ritual Studies"The essays in this collection provide a very useful overview of both the diversity of African divination systems and of recent approaches to their study." —ChoiceThis unique collection of essays by an exceptional international group of Africanists demonstrates the central role that divination continues to play throughout Africa in maintaining cultural systems and in guiding human action. African Divination Systems offers insights for current discussions in comparative epistemology, cross-cultural psychology, cognition studies, semiotics, ethnoscience, religious studies, and anthropology.

" . . . a great read. It is masterfully presented, and is an ideal text both for advanced undergraduates and graduate students." —International Journal of African Historical Studies" . . . a detailed, critical guide to fifty years of African philosophy . . . " —Teaching Philosophy"Masolo offers an expansive and lucidly panoramic view of the origin and developments in African philosophy." —Africa Today"The excellence of this book lies in the wealth of perspectives that it brings to the discussion on what constitutes philosophy, rationality, and meaningful reflection. It is both thought provoking and illuminating." —EthicsA Kenyan philosopher surveys themes and debates in African philosophy over the last five decades. Masolo's purview includes Francophone and Anglophone philosophers in both the analytic and phenomenological traditions.

"[Herbert] has constructed a model of power relationships structured upon gender and age, and derived from male transformative processes, and in so doing has written a notable, and most enjoyable, book." —African History"Herbert examines with great care and thoroughness the relationships between gender and power and the rationales that give them social form. . . . [Her] analytical ability is outstanding." —Patrick McNaughton"This book is a well-written and essential study of the place of belief in African material culture." —International Journal of African Historical Studies Herbert relates the beliefs and practices associated with iron working in African cultures to other transformative activities—chiefly investiture, hunting, and pottery making—to propose a gender/age-based theory of power.

". . . this is a remarkable book. It will occupy a significant place in the critical literature of African Studies." —International Journal of African Historical Studies"To read Mudimbe is to walk through a museum of many exhibits in the company of an erudite companion who explains, with much learned commentary, what you are seeing." —American Anthropologist"Mudimbe's sympathetic yet rigorous accounts of such diverse Africanist discourses as Herskovits's cultural relativism and contemporary Afrocentricity bring to the surface the underlying goals and contexts in which these were produced." —Ivan KarpA sequel to his highly acclaimed The Invention of Africa, this is V. Y. Mudimbe's exploration of how the "idea" of Africa was constructed by the Western world.

"This volume has much to recommend it—providing fascinating and stimulating insights into many arenas of material culture, many of which still remain only superficially explored in the archaeological literature." —Archaeological Review". . . a vivid introduction to the topic. . . . A glimpse into the unique and changing identities in an ever-changing world." —Come-All-YeFourteen interdisciplinary essays open new perspectives for understanding African societies and cultures through the contextualized study of objects, treating everything from the production of material objects to the meaning of sticks, masquerades, household tools, clothing, and the television set in the contemporary repertoire of African material culture.

"Wiredu's discussion of culturally defined values and concepts, as well as his attention to such timely issues as human rights, makes this book invaluable interdisciplinary reading." —D. A. MasoloGhanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities. Wiredu asserts that universals, rightly conceived on the basis of our common biological identity, are not incompatible with cultural particularities and, in fact, are what make intercultural communication possible. Drawing on aspects of Akan thought that appear to diverge from Western conceptions in the areas of ethics and metaphysics, Wiredu calls for a just reappraisal of these disparities, free of thought patterns corrupted by a colonial mentality. Wiredu's exposition of the principles of African traditional philosophy is not purely theoretical; he shows how certain aspects of African political thought may be applied to the practical resolution of some of Africa's most pressing problems.

The second edition of this landmark work is enhanced by new chapters on Ogun worship in the New World. From reviews of the first edition:" . . . an ethnographically rich contribution to the historical understanding of West African culture, as well as an exploration of the continued vitality of that culture in the changing environments of the Americas." —African Studies Review" . . . leav[es] the reader with a sense of the vitality, dynamism, and complexity of Ogun and the cultural contexts in which he thrives. . . . magnificent contribution to the literature on Ogun, Yoruba culture, African religions, and the African diaspora." —International Journal of Historical Studies

"Hountondji . . . writes not as an 'African' philosopher but as a philosopher on Africa. . . . Hountondji's deep understanding of any civilization as necessarily pluralistic, and often even self-contradicting as it evolves, is simply magisterial. . . . This is a precious gem of a book for anyone who wishes to reflect on civilization and culture." —ChoiceIn this incisive, original exploration of the nature and future of African philosophy, Paulin J. Hountondji attacks a myth popularized by ethnophilosophers such as Placide Tempels and Alexis Kagame that there is an indigenous, collective African philosophy separate and distinct from the Western philosophical tradition. Hountondji contends that ideological manifestations of this view that stress the uniqueness of the African experience are protonationalist reactions against colonialism conducted, paradoxically, in the terms of colonialist discourse. Hountondji argues that a genuine African philosophy must assimilate and transcend the theoretical heritage of Western philosophy and must reflect a rigorous process of independent scientific inquiry. This edition is updated with a new preface in which Hountondji responds to his critics and clarifies misunderstandings about the book's conceptual framework.

This book assesses the direction and impact of African philosophy as well as its future role.What is the intellectual, social, cultural, and political territory of African philosophy? What directions will African philosophy take in the future? What problems will it face? In 10 probing essays by distinguished African, European, and American scholars, African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry examines the role of African philosophy at the opening of the new millennium. Here philosophy cuts across disciplinary boundaries to embrace ideas taken from history, literary studies, anthropology, and art. Addressing topics such as the progress of philosophical discourse, knowledge and modes of thought, the relevance of philosophy for cultures that are still largely based on traditional values, and the meaning of philosophy to cultures and individuals in the process of modernization, this volume presents today's best thinking about the concerns and practices that constitute African experience. New views about personhood, freedom, responsibility, progress, development, the role of the state, and life in civil society emerge from these broad-based considerations of the crisis of the postcolonial African state. In a lively fashion this diverse book shows how philosophical questions can be applied to interpretations of culture and reveals the multifaceted nature of philosophical discourse in the multiple and variable settings that exist in contemporary Africa.

Until the advent of African independence, Africans were not considered fitting subjects for historical research and their words, voices, and experiences were largely absent from the continent's history.In 13 lively and provocative essays focusing on all areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, oral sources are seen as a way to restore African expression to African history. African Words, African Voices evokes the richness and relevance of oral sources for understanding a complex past for readers at all levels.Contributors include E. J. Alagoa, David William Cohen, Laura Fair, Babacar Fall, Tamara Giles-Vernick, Isabel Hofmeyr, Abdullahi A. Ibrahim, Corinne A. Kratz, Stephan F. Miescher, Bethwell Allan Ogot, Megan Vaughan, Luise White, and Kwesi Yankah.

"Peel is by training an anthropologist, but one possessed of an acute historical sensibility. Indeed, this magnificent book achieves a degree of analytical verve rare in either discipline." —History Today"[T]his is scholarship of the highest quality. . . . Peel lifts the Yoruba past to a dimension of comparative seriousness that no one else has managed. . . . The book teems with ideas . . . about big and compelling matters of very wide interest." —T. C. McCaskieIn this magisterial book, J. D. Y. Peel contends that it is through their encounter with Christian missions in the mid-19th century that the Yoruba came to know themselves as a distinctive people. Peel's detailed study of the encounter is based on the rich archives of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, which contain the journals written by the African agents of mission, who, as the first generation of literate Yoruba, played a key role in shaping modern Yoruba consciousness. This distinguished book pays special attention to the experiences of ordinary men and women and shows how the process of Christian conversion transformed Christianity into something more deeply Yoruba.

Apartheid's Festival highlights the conflicts and debates that surrounded the 1952 celebration of the 300th anniversary of the landing of Jan Van Riebeeck and the founding of Cape Town, South Africa. Taking place at the height of the apartheid era, the festival was viewed by many as an opportunity for the government to promote its nationalist, separatist agenda in grand fashion. Leslie Witz's fine-grained examination of newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and advertising materials reveals the expectations of the festival planners as well as how the festival was engineered, historical figures were reconstructed, and the ANC and other anti-apartheid organizations mounted opposition to it. While laying open the darker motives of the apartheid regime, Witz shows that the production of local history is part of a global process forged by the struggle between colonialism and resistance. Readers interested in South Africa, representations of nationalism, and the making of public history will find Apartheid's Festival to be an important study of a society in transition.

In the rush to development in Botswana, and Africa more generally, changes in work, diet, and medical care have resulted in escalating experiences of chronic illness, debilitating disease, and accident. Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana documents how transformations wrought by colonialism, independence, industrialization, and development have effected changes in bodily life and perceptions of health, illness, and debility. In this intimate and powerful book, Julie Livingston explores the lives of debilitated persons, their caregivers, the medical and social networks of caring, and methods that communities have adopted for promoting well-being. Livingston traces how Tswana medical thought and practice have become intertwined with Western bio-medical ideas and techniques. By focusing on experiences and meanings of illness and bodily misfortune, Livingston sheds light on the complexities of the current HIV/AIDS epidemic and places it in context with a long and complex history of impairment and debility. This book presents practical and thoughtful responses to physical misfortune and offers an understanding of the complex dynamic between social change and suffering.

Beer connects commercial, social, and political history in this sobering look at the culture of drinking in South Africa. Beginning where stories of colonial liquor control and exploitation leave off, Anne Kelk Mager looks at the current commerce of beer, its valorizing of male sociability and sports, and the corporate culture of South African Breweries [SAB], the world's most successful brewing company. Mager shows how the industry, dominated by a single brewer, was compelled to comply with legislation that divided customers along racial lines, but also promoted images of multi-racial social drinking in the final years of apartheid. Since the transition to majority rule, SAB has rapidly expanded into new markets—including the United States with the purchase of Miller Brewing Company. This lively book affords a unique view into global manufacturing, monopolies, politics and public culture, race relations, and cold beer.

Barbara M. Cooper looks closely at the Sudan Interior Mission, an evangelical Christian mission that has taken a tenuous hold in a predominantly Hausa Muslim area on the southern fringe of Niger. Based on sustained fieldwork, personal interviews, and archival research, this vibrant, sensitive, compelling, and candid book gives a unique glimpse into an important dimension of religious life in Africa. Cooper's involvement in a violent religious riot provides a useful backdrop for introducing other themes and concerns such as Bible translation, medical outreach, public preaching, tensions between English-speaking and French-speaking missionaries, and the Christian mission's changing views of Islam.

" . . . a model of judiciousness and integrative analysis . . . " —Research in African LiteraturesPoet and anthropologist Michael Jackson brings to this study of the folktales of the Kuranko people of Sierra Leone a sensitivity to the philosophical nuances of literature.