 | |
| Author | Paul Gilroy |
|---|---|
| Subject | Sociology, social science, African American studies |
| Published | 1993 |
| Pages | 280 |
| ISBN | 9780674076068 |
The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness is a 1993 history book about a distinct black Atlantic culture that incorporated elements from African, American, British, and Caribbean cultures. It was written by Paul Gilroy and was published by Harvard University Press and Verso Books.
The first chapter of the Black Atlantic describes the double-consciousness maintained by Africans in the diaspora. [1] The chapter asserts that Black identity is multifaceted and difficult to define due to the multinational position of Blackness. Gilroy utilizes the imagery of the slave ship to demonstrate the position of Black bodies between two (or more) lands, identities, cultures, etc. which is unable to be defined by borders. [2] Additionally, Gilroy discusses how western nationalism results from a narrative created by whites that ties western nationalism to whiteness. [3] This narrative inherently others Black folk who often partly belong to the same national identity. He highlights artistic expression (particularly through music from Black diasporic communities) as a means of exploring the transient nature of Blackness. [4] Pointedly, he speaks of the song "Keep on Moving" which he asserts expresses "the restlessness of spirit which makes that diaspora culture vital". [5] In many ways, the song exemplifies the state of the diaspora as Black bodies have existed in numerous spaces and cannot be defined solely by where they have been, where they are, or where they are going. Black diasporic music remains of great importance to Gilroy's narrative as it is demonstrative of the manner in which Black individuals are able to embrace a communal identity despite many individuals in the diaspora's original cultures being stolen from them. Ultimately, Gilroy asserts that the Black experience is coupled with the varied narratives relating to belonging and history, still, in many ways, the narratives are mitigated by music which allows for Black expression and community to be shared beyond borders. [6]
Gilroy's attention to "Black Europeanness" in The Black Atlantic brings up themes of double consciousness and its presence in Black Europeans. He expresses how the existence of racist and nationalist discourse have interacted in a manner that portrays them as separate identities and opinions. They contrive political relationships in a way that isolates each identity, making them seem mutually exclusive. The effect of this is that there exists no blending or interweaving of these identities and any effort in forming connections or walking the middle ground between them is politically provocative and insubordinate. [7] Gilroy connects this to the black Atlantic, which he defines as a "modern political and cultural formation", by expressing his desire for it to break free from the structures and nation states that facilitate racist and nationalist politics. [8]
The globalAfrican diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from Native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in the United States, Brazil, and Haiti. However, the term can also be used to refer to non native African descendants from North Africa who immigrated to other parts of the world. Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of this migration out of Africa. The phrase African diaspora gradually entered common usage at the turn of the 21st century. The term "diaspora" originates from the Greek διασπορά which gained popularity in English in reference to the Jewish diaspora before being more broadly applied to other populations.
Black studies, or Africana studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of the peoples of the African diaspora and Africa. The field includes scholars of African-American, Afro-Canadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Asian, African Australian, and African literature, history, politics, and religion as well as those from disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. The field also uses various types of research methods.
Stuart Henry McPhail Hall was a Jamaican-born British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies.
Hazel Vivian Carby is Professor Emerita of African American Studies and of American Studies. She served as Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of African American Studies and American Studies at Yale University.
Paul Gilroy is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 winner of the €660,000 Holberg Prize, for "his outstanding contributions to a number of academic fields, including cultural studies, critical race studies, sociology, history, anthropology and African-American studies".
Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, and not only based on individuals' prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.
Double consciousness is the dual self-perception experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, in which he described the African American experience of double consciousness, including his own.
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu was a Nigerian author, researcher and political activist.
Music of the African diaspora was mostly refined and developed during the period of slavery. Slaves did not have easy access to instruments, so vocal work took on new significance. Through chants and work songs people of African descent preserved elements of their African heritage while inventing new genres of music. The culmination of this great sublimation of musical energy into vocal work can be seen in genres as disparate as Gospel Music and Hip-Hop. The music of the African diaspora makes frequent use of ostinato, a motif or phrase which is persistently repeated at the same pitch. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody. The banjo is a direct descendant of the Akonting created by the Jola people, found in Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. Hence, the melodic traditions of the African diaspora are probably most alive in Blues and Jazz.
The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1980s.
The following events related to sociology occurred in the 1990s.
Senegalese literature is written or literary work which has been produced by writers born in the West African state. Senegalese literary works are mostly written in French, the language of the colonial administration. However, there are many instances of works being written in Arabic and the native languages of Wolof, Pulaar, Mandinka, Diola, Soninke and Serer. Oral traditions, in the form of Griot storytellers, constitute a historical element of the Senegalese canon and have persisted as cultural custodians throughout the nation’s history. A form of proto-Senegalese literature arose during the mid 19th century with the works of David Abbé Boilat, who produced written ethnographic literature which supported French Colonial rule. This genre of Senegalese literature continued to expand during the 1920s with the works of Bakary Diallo and Ahmadou Mapaté Diagne. Earlier literary examples exist in the form of Qur’anic texts which led to the growth of a form African linguistic expressionism using the Arabic alphabet, known as Ajami. Poets of this genre include Ahmad Ayan Sih and Dhu al-nun.
Liverpool and the Black Atlantic was a season of citywide series of exhibitions and events initiated by Tate Liverpool exploring connections between cultures and continents.
The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews is a three-volume work of pseudo-scholarship, published by the Nation of Islam. The first volume, which was released in 1991, asserts that Jews dominated the Atlantic slave trade. The Secret Relationship has been widely criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. The American Historical Association issued a statement condemning claims that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade, and other historians such as Wim Klooster and Seymour Drescher concluded that the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade was in fact minimal.
Hortense J. Spillers is an American literary critic, Black Feminist scholar and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University. A scholar of the African diaspora, Spillers is known for her essays on African-American literature, collected in Black, White, and In Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2003, and Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex, and Nationality in the Modern Text, a collection edited by Spillers published by Routledge in 1991.
Flying Africans are figures of African diaspora legend who escape enslavement by a magical passage back over the ocean. Most noted in Gullah culture, they also occur in wider African-American folklore, and in that of some Afro-Caribbean peoples.
Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out is an English translation of the German book Farbe bekennen edited by author May Ayim, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz. It is the first published book by Afro-Germans. It is the first written use of the term Afro-German. A compilation of texts, testimonials and other secondary sources, the collection brings to life the stories of black German women living amid racism, sexism and other institutional constraints in Germany. The book draws on themes and motifs prevalent in Germany from the earliest colonial interactions between Germany and black "otherness," up through the lived experiences of black German women in the 1980s. It was groundbreaking not only for the degree to which it examined the Afro-German experience, which had been generally ignored in the larger popular discourse, but also as a forum for women to have a voice in constructing this narrative. The book also acted as a source for these Afro-German women to have a platform where their stories can be heard. The stories that were told helped the development of an Afro-German community as a common theme throughout Showing Our Colors was the idea of feeling alone and as though there was no one to relate to. The discussion of this loss of connection to others helped Afro-Germans come together and unite.
Judith Weisenfeld is an American scholar of religion. She is Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, where she is also the Chair of the Department of Religion. Her research primarily focuses on African-American religion in the first half of the 20th century. In 2019, Weisenfeld was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nancie Schermerhorn Struever is an American historian of the Renaissance. She is a professor emerita in the department of comparative thought and literature at the Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences where she joined the faculty in 1974. Struever was previously a professor at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
This is a select bibliography of English-language books and journal articles about the history of Ukraine. Book entries have references to journal reviews about them when helpful and available. Additional bibliographies can be found in many of the book-length works listed below. See the bibliography section for several additional book and chapter-length bibliographies from academic publishers and online bibliographies from historical associations and academic institutions.
