Ethnological show business has a very long history in Europe. It became increasingly common after advances in navigational technology put Europeans in touch with human communities all over the globe.In the 19th and 20th centuries some of the most interesting individuals and groups exhibited in Europe and America came from Africa. What did the average spectator think of such representatives from the "Dark Continent"? If the display was a dramatic one -- that is, if the Africans sang, danced or acted out events -- what opinions did observers form of them as performers and as human beings? How was the spectacle staged, and who organized and managed the show? How authentic were these performances? Where did the performers actually come from? What notions about Africa and Africans were these exhibitions meant to convey?Africans on Stage is a book about how these three groups -- players, promoters, and spectators -- helped to shape European and American perceptions of Africans. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa. Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history. While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.

Annotation Explores Berber cultural identity and performance in Algeria, France, and on the world music scene.

In the early 1890s, black performer Bob Cole turned blackface minstrelsy on its head with his nationally recognized whiteface creation, a character he called Willie Wayside. Just over a century later, hiphop star Busta Rhymes performed a whiteface superco

This book critically analyses the ways in which Africa has shifted from the periphery of global trade, international relations and politics to the centre of the world stage because of its existing and potential economic prowess and purchasing power that the continent has to offer.

Julius K. Nyerere rose to global greatness in what was at the time one of the poorest countries in the world. He led the way in uniting two countries into one (Tanganyika and Zanzibar) and emerged as in the vanguard of the struggle against colonialism and apartheid. He also became one of the most eloquent voices of the Global South in its demands for fairness and justice in the global economy. This collection of essays captures Nyerere's invention of a new indigenous ideology (ujamaa), his promotion of an indigenous language policy (Kiswahili), his remarkable influence in Pan-African politics, and Nyerere's special place in the history of the 20th century. Because the essays were written across time, they capture the unfolding narrative of continuity and change. This volume also demonstrates how a political leader could be humble enough to avoid ostentation, scholarly enough to translate Shakespeare into an African language, and great enough to help change the African continent forever. This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin. "...[I]t is genuinely a useful book for all those seeking inspiration in 'their struggles to transcend dependency.' It is of importance to all students and those interested in understanding Tanzania and Africa." -- Conrad John Masabo, African Studies Quarterly

This book analyses the origins of segregation in South Africa and the American South.

Featuers the four plays - ""Reach"", ""Some Mother's Sons"", ""Shwele Bawo!!"", and ""Dream of the Dog"" - that explore the themes such as reconciliation, matriarchy, justice, accountability, corruption, truth, memory, and violence which reflect on the challenges and questions South Africans are confronted with in their nascent democratic state.

A captivating account of an interracial jazz opera that took apartheid South Africa by storm and marked a turning point in the nation's cultural history.

This directory includes over 500 African American performers and theater people who have made a significant contribution to the American stage from the early 19th century to the beginning of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Entries provide succinct biographical and theatrical information gathered from a variety of sources including library theater and drama collections, dissertations and theses, newspaper and magazine reviews and criticism, theater programs, theatrical memoirs, and earlier performing arts directories. Among the professional artists included in this volume are performers, librettists, lyricists, directors, producers, choreographers, stage managers, and musicians. The individuals profiled represent almost every major category and genre of the professional, semiprofessional, regional, and academic stage including minstrelsy, vaudeville, musical theater, and drama. Persons of historical significance are included as well as those stars and theatrical personalities that were well known during their time but who are relatively forgotten today. This comprehensive volume will appeal to theater and musical theater, Black studies, and American studies scholars. Cross-referenced throughout, this reference also includes an extensive bibliography and appendices of other theater personalities excluded from the main text. Separate indexes list the personalities, teams and partnerships, and performing groups, organizations, and companies.