MACMILLAN Art, Creativity, and Politics in Africa and the Diaspora (African Histories and Modernities)

This book explores the politics of artistic creativity, examining how black artists in Africa and the diaspora create art as a procedure of self-making. Essays cross continents to uncover the efflorescence of black culture in national and global contexts and in literature, film, performance, music, and visual art. Contributors place the concerns of black artists and their works within national and transnational conversations on anti-black racism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, migration, resettlement, resistance, and transnational feminisms. Does art by the subaltern fulfill the liberatory potential that critics have ascribed to it? What other possibilities does political art offer? Together, these essays sort through the aesthetics of daily life to build a thesis that reflects the desire of black artists and cultures to remake themselves and their world. Review “This is a book of exceptional importance for researchers, teachers, and the general reader with interests in the art as well as the creative and political studies of Africa and the Black world of the diaspora. It is, indeed, a well-researched publication, which will certainly stand the test of time due to its multi-purposefulness and intellectual distinction.” (A. B. Assensoh, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University, and Courtesy Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon, USA) “At the heart of this book is the notion of art as goal-directed and emancipatory, belonging both to the individual creator and to the creator’s community. These essays are Afrocentric and powerfully grounded in engagement scholarship, particularly in their description and analysis of the ways in which African art globalizes its humanistic value without losing its local essence as a material site of social and political expression.” (Malami Buba, Professor, Division of African Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, South Korea) From the Back Cover This book explores the politics of artistic creativity, examining how black artists in Africa and the diaspora create art as a procedure of self-making. Essays cross continents to uncover the efflorescence of black culture in national and global contexts and in literature, film, performance, music, and visual art. Contributors place the concerns of black artists and their works within national and transnational conversations on anti-black racism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, migration, resettlement, resistance, and transnational feminisms. Does art by the subaltern fulfill the liberatory potential that critics have ascribed to it? What other possibilities does political art offer? Together, these essays sort through the aesthetics of daily life to build a thesis that reflects the desire of black artists and cultures to remake themselves and their world. About the Author Abimbola Adelakun teaches in the African and Africana Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Toyin Falola is University Distinguished Teaching Professor and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA, as well as Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.