The Griots of Oakland

The Griots of Oakland PDF Author: Angela Zusman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780988763111
Category : African American men
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
What is it like being a young African American man? The media repeats the same stereotypes again and again, yet the reality is much more diverse. This eye-opening and beautifully presented book shares the voices and images of a group of young black men in Oakland, interviewed by their peers in a groundbreaking oral history project. The youth share their wisdom on a range of questions, organized by theme and accompanied by portrait photography and materials for further reflection. For students, educators, policy makers, and those who want to gain a better understanding of modern African American culture.

In Griot Time

In Griot Time PDF Author: Banning Eyre
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781566397599
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
A narrative of life among the griot musicians of Mali. Born into families where music and the tradition of griot story-telling are heritages and privileges, the musicians live their lives at the intersection of ancient traditions and the modern entertainment industry.

Griots and Griottes

Griots and Griottes PDF Author: Thomas Albert Hale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780253334589
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Book Description
A comprehensive illustrated portrait of griots and griottes including extensive reference materials.

Against the Tide

Against the Tide PDF Author: Kolski Horwitz
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 1990922430
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
The four plays that make up this collection Thabo Mbeki and Other Nightmares by Tsepo wa-Mamatu; Circles by Tau Maserumule; Comrade Babble by Allan Kolski Horwitz; My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Lesego Rampolokeng/Liepollo Rantekoa, Stacy Hardy and Jaco Bouwer; The Life and Times of Brett Kebble by Patrick Bond, have, as a linking thread, their confrontation with the ongoing corruption and mismanagement that characterizes the not-so-new liberated South Africa. Stylistically quite different, each breaks new ground in presenting these debilitating features and while tackling political themes head-on, never degenerates into mere sloganeering or counter-propaganda. Indeed, they take contemporary South African playwriting to new heights of 'committed theatre'.

Charles Burnett

Charles Burnett PDF Author: James Naremore
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285530
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
In the first book devoted to Charles Burnett, a crucial figure in the history of American cinema often regarded as the most influential member of the L.A. Rebellion group of African American filmmakers, James Naremore provides a close critical study of all Burnett’s major pictures for movies and television, including Killer of Sheep, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield, Nightjohn, The Wedding, Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property, and Warming by the Devil’s Fire. Having accessed new information and rarely seen material, Naremore shows that Burnett’s career has developed against the odds and that his artistry, social criticism, humor, and commitment to what he calls “symbolic knowledge” have given his work enduring value for American culture.

Africa Shoots Back

Africa Shoots Back PDF Author: Melissa Thackway
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253216427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
"Filmmakers in sub-Saharan Francophone Africa have been using cinema since independence in the Sixties to challenge existing Western stereotypes of the continent. The author shows how directors working in a postcolonial context that has inevitably influence film agendas and styles have produced a range of alternative, challenging representations"--Page 4 of cover.

Hear Where We Are

Hear Where We Are PDF Author: Michael Stocker
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461472857
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
Throughout history, hearing and sound perception have been typically framed in the context of how sound conveys information and how that information influences the listener. "Hear Where We Are" inverts this premise and examines how humans and other hearing animals use sound to establish acoustical relationships with their surroundings. This simple inversion reveals a panoply of possibilities by which we can re-evaluate how hearing animals use, produce, and perceive sound. Nuance in vocalizations become signals of enticement or boundary setting; silence becomes a field ripe in auditory possibilities; predator/prey relationships are infused with acoustic deception, and sounds that have been considered territorial cues become the fabric of cooperative acoustical communities. This inversion also expands the context of sound perception into a larger perspective that centers on biological adaptation within acoustic habitats. Here, the rapid synchronized flight patterns of flocking birds and the tight maneuvering of schooling fish becomes an acoustic engagement. Likewise, when stridulating crickets synchronize their summer evening chirrups, it has more to do with the ‘cricket community’ monitoring their collective boundaries rather than individual crickets establishing ‘personal’ territory or breeding fitness. In "Hear Where We Are" the author continuously challenges many of the bio-acoustic orthodoxies, reframing the entire inquiry into sound perception and communication. By moving beyond our common assumptions, many of the mysteries of acoustical behavior become revealed, exposing a fresh and fertile panorama of acoustical experience and adaptation.

Sweet Bitter Blues

Sweet Bitter Blues PDF Author: Phil Wiggins
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496826957
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington, DC’s Homemade Blues depicts the life and times of harmonica player Phil Wiggins and the unique, vibrant music scene around him, as described by music journalist Frank Matheis. Featuring Wiggins’s story, but including information on many musicians, the volume presents an incomparable documentary of the African American blues scene in Washington, DC, from 1975 to the present. At its core, the DC-area acoustic “down home” blues scene was and is rooted in the African American community. A dedicated group of musicians saw it as their mission to carry on their respective Piedmont musical traditions: Mother Scott, Flora Molton, Chief Ellis, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, John Cephas, and foremost Phil Wiggins. Because of their love for the music and willingness to teach, these creators fostered a harmonious environment, mostly centered on Archie Edwards’s famous barbershop where Edwards opened his doors every Saturday afternoon for jam sessions. Sweet Bitter Blues features biographies and supporting essays based on Wiggins’s recollections and supplemented by Matheis’s research, along with a foreword by noted blues scholar Elijah Wald, historic interviews by Dr. Barry Lee Pearson with John Cephas and Archie Edwards, and previously unpublished and rare photographs. This is the story of an acoustic blues scene that was and is a living tradition.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Black Leopard, Red Wolf PDF Author: Marlon James
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735220190
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 640

Book Description
One of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time Winner of the L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award The New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of 2019 by The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, GQ, Vogue, and The Washington Post "A fantasy world as well-realized as anything Tolkien made." --Neil Gaiman "Gripping, action-packed....The literary equivalent of a Marvel Comics universe." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times The epic novel from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers--he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

The Poetics of Difference

The Poetics of Difference PDF Author: Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252052897
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
Winner of the Modern Language Association (MLA)’s William Sanders Scarborough Prize From Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, and Bessie Head, to Zanele Muholi, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Missy Elliott, Black women writers and artists across the African Diaspora have developed nuanced and complex creative forms. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ventures into the unexplored spaces of black women’s queer creative theorizing to learn its languages and read the textures of its forms. Moving beyond fixed notions, Sullivan points to a space of queer imagination where black women invent new languages, spaces, and genres to speak the many names of difference. Black women’s literary cultures have long theorized the complexities surrounding nation and class, the indeterminacy of gender and race, and the multiple meanings of sexuality. Yet their ideas and work remain obscure in the face of indifference from Western scholarship. Innovative and timely, The Poetics of Difference illuminates understudied queer contours of black women’s writing.