Word: africanism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...While one can question the substance of West, one cannot help but be impressed by the volume of his work. Twenty books by West since 1982 are listed in the front of the Reader. His future projects are no less ambitious: West plans a collaboration on African-American and Greek literature with Elemi Mavromatidou along with a long term project on Checkov and Coltrane and more ventuers into literary criticism. His next published works will be Heart of American Darkness, and I Ain't Noways Tired, a "bold venture in intellectual biography modeled on black musical forms...
...cross-cultural exhibition titled "Body Art: Marks of Identity," curated by Schildkrout and devoted to the past 4,000 years of body modification--"bod-mod" to the cognoscenti--opened at the American Museum. At the same time, photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, based in London, have published African Ceremonies (Abrams; $150), two magnificent volumes documenting the continent's rapidly vanishing kaleidoscope of tribal rites, many of which involve elaborate body decoration...
...boost self-esteem, ward off or invoke spirits, indicate social position or marital status, identify with a particular age or gender group or mark a rite of passage, such as puberty or marriage. It's this sort of strictly prescribed, highly ritualistic decoration that Beckwith and Fisher depict in African Ceremonies. "We've tried to show how body art is relevant to every stage of development, from birth to death," says Fisher...
...heart of South African author J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace (Viking; 220 pages; $23.95) lie two rapes--or rather, two scenes of violence, domination and utter disregard for humanity. And although rape is not the true subject of this book, with these parallel violations Coetzee has devised a subtly brilliant commentary on the nature and balance of power in his homeland...
...SOUTH AFRICAN TERROR...