A groundbreaking scholarly publication, accompanying an exhibition organized by the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, African Cosmos: Stellar Arts brings together exceptional works of art, dating from ancient times to the present, and essays by leading scholars and contemporary artists to consider African cultural astronomy: creativity and artistic practice in Africa as it is linked to celestial bodies and atmospheric phenomena. African concepts of the universe are intensely personal, placing human beings in relation to the earth and sky, and with the sun, moon, and stars. At the core of creation myths and the foundation of moral values, celestial bodies are often accorded sacred capacities and are part of the “cosmological map” that allows humans to chart their course through life.

An Exploration of Imhotep—Architect of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, High Priest of Ra, and Royal Astronomer—as Well as His Influence as the True Father of African Civilization. In this groundbreaking book, Egyptologist Robert Bauval and astrophysicist Thomas Brophy uncover the mystery of Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian superstar, pharaonic Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, and Newton all rolled into one. Based on their research at the Step Pyramid Complex at Saqqara, Bauval and Brophy delve into observational astronomy to "decode" the alignments and other design features of the Step Pyramid Complex, to uncover the true origins and genius of Imhotep. Like a whodunit detective story they follow the clues that take them on an exhilarating magical mystery tour starting at Saqqara, leading them to temples in Upper Egypt and to the stones of Nabta Playa and the black African stargazers who placed them there.Imhotep the African describes how Imhotep was the ancient link to the birth of modern civilization, restoring him to his proper place at the center of the birthing of Egyptian, and world, civilization.

From a star theoretical physicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos—and a call for a more liberatory practice of science. Winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology A Finalist for the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A Smithsonian Magazine Best Science Book of 2021 A Symmetry Magazine Top 10 Physics Book of 2021 An Entropy Magazine Best Nonfiction Book of 2020-2021 A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 A Booklist Top 10 Sci-Tech Book of the Year In The Disordered Cosmos, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter—along with a perspective informed by history, politics, and the wisdom of Star Trek. One of the leading physicists of her generation, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is also one of fewer than one hundred Black American women to earn a PhD from a department of physics. Her vision of the cosmos is vibrant, buoyantly nontraditional, and grounded in Black and queer feminist lineages. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein urges us to recognize how science, like most fields, is rife with racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. She lays out a bold new approach to science and society, beginning with the belief that we all have a fundamental right to know and love the night sky. The Disordered Cosmos dreams into existence a world that allows everyone to experience and understand the wonders of the universe.

"Life is fundamentally a process of perpetual and mutual communication; and to communicate is to emit and to receive waves and radiations (minika ye minienie). This process of, receiving and releasing or passing them on (tambula ye tambikisa) is the key to human beings game of survival. A person is perpetually bathed by radiations' weight, (zitu kia minienie). The weight (zitu/demo) of radiations may have a negative as well as positive impact on any tiny being, for example a person who represents the most vibrating: "kolo" (knot) of relationships." "The following expressions are very common among the Bantu, in general, and among the Kongo in particular, which prove to us the antiquity of these concepts in the African continent; Our businesses are waved/shaken; our health is waved/shaken; what we possess is waved/shaken; the communities are waved/shaken: Where are these (negative) waves coming from (Salu bieto bieti nikunwa; mavimpi nikunwa; biltuvwidi nikunwa; makanda nikunwa: Kwe kutukanga minika miami)?" "For the Bantu, a person lives and moves within an ocean of waves/radiations. One is sensitive or immune to them. To be sensitive to waves is to be able to react negatively or positively to those waves/forces. But to be immune to surrounding waves/forces, is to be less reactive to them or not at all. These differences account for varying degrees in the process of knowing/learning among individuals" --BOOK Cover.

Meet Cosmo the female African Grey Parrot who talks, responds, and tells jokes. By age six she had learned more than two hundred different phrases and become an adorable feathery person who awakens us to the potential intelligence of all other non-human residents of the earth.

This book presents a long-ranging and in-depth study of South African writing set in London during the apartheid years and beyond. Since London served as an important site of South African exile and emigration, particularly during the second half of the twentieth-century, the city shaped the history of South African letters in meaningful and material ways. Being in London allowed South African writers to engage with their own expectations of Englishness, and to rethink their South African identities. The book presents a range of diverse and fascinating responses by South African writers that provide nuanced perspectives on exile, global racisms and modernity. Writers studied include Peter Abrahams, Dan Jacobson, Noni Jabavu, Todd Matshikiza, Arthur Nortje, Lauretta Ngcobo, J.M.Coetzee, Justin Cartwright, and Ishtiyaq Shukri. South African London offers an original and multi-faceted take on both London writing and South African twentieth-century literature.

This perceptive study of African American spirituality sees the experience of the African American church as an example for all other peoples in their struggles for liberation from the world's shackles.

This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

For several decades, African philosophers have debated on the history, nature, and methodology of African philosophy, among others; however, this piece takes a different turn. It reflects on the disciplines of African philosophy. It is a work of twelve chapters and focuses on the major disciplines of African philosophy. This piece is a response to the recurrent question in the class of African philosophy: What are the disciplines of African Philosophy?