#molefi asante

[arinzeture]

[reasoningdaily]

Encyclopedia of African Religion - by Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Mazama (Editors)

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Encyclopedia of African Religion

As the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entries that seek to rediscover the original beauty and majesty of African religion.

Features

· Offers the best representation to date of the African response to the sacred

· Helps readers grasp the enormity of Africa′s contribution to religious ideas by presenting richly textured concepts of spirituality, ritual, and initiation while simultaneously advancing new theological categories, cosmological narratives, and ways to conceptualize ethical behavior

· Provides readers with new metaphors, figures of speech, modes of reasoning, etymologies, analogies, and cosmogonies

· Reveals the complexity, texture, and rhythms of the African religious tradition to provide scholars with a baseline for future works

The Encyclopedia of African Religion is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in fields such as Religion, Africana Studies, Sociology, and Philosophy.

"Numerous titles focusing on particular beliefs in Africa exist, including Marcel Griaule′s Conversations with Ogotemmeli, but this one presents an unparallelled exploration of a multitude of cultures and experiences.It is both a gateway to deeper exploration and a penetrating resource on its own. This is bound to become the definitive scholarly resource on African religions." — Library Journal, Starred Review "Overall, because of its singular focus, reliability, and scope, this encyclopedia will prove invaluable where there is considerable interest in Africa or in different religious traditions." –Library Journal

[arinzeture]

[reasoningdaily]

The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony - Molefi Kete Asante

click the link above to download for FREE from Z-Lib

Authoritative and comprehensive,The History of Africa provides an accessible narrative from earliest prehistory to the present day, with unusual attention paid to the ordinary lives of Africans.

This survey includes a wealth of indigenous ideas, African concepts, and traditional outlooks that have escaped the writing of African history in the West.

The fully updated new edition includes information on the recent conflicts in Libya and the Sudan, as well as additional content on the experiences and contributions of women.

A companion website offers a wealth of supporting resources for each chapter, including new historic maps, primary sources, video and audio clips, and links to sites for further research.

Richly illustrated and clearly written, this volume is an indispensable introduction to the major developments, personalities, and events that have shaped the history of the African continent.

[gravalicious]

Lafayette Gaston - Past Afrocentricity: Reassessing Cheikh Anta Diop’s Place In the Afrocentric Frame (2009) [The Liberator Magazine 8.1 #23]

[fvckcolonialism]

Journal #6 pt. 2

To continue, briefly, with my journal entry the other day I would like to talk about the lyric I had in my head. I want to make this brief, because much has occurred in the subsequent days which deserves my time and though too. The lyric is from the rapper, Jonwayne’s song “I’m a Poor Man, but Rich in Mind”. The first verse begins with a question: What’s in a name anyway, except the data? He continues, “I’m tired of this life / been playin’ it since the beta.” The extended metaphor throughout the song contains allusions to the film The Matrix and the song discusses the nature of the stagnancy in his life/career, but I digress. The initial question resounded in my mind because I was also thinking about the nature of the slave trade in South Africa; it was standard practice to strip an enslaved person their birth name and rename them upon ‘ownership’. Such as it happened, the workings of the naming system has been documented fairly well. Names of enslaved people commonly consisted of the month in which they arrived or were purchased, their location of origin, and/or various biblical and other such names. Ex. Rimera van Mozambique. This practice was a gross erasure and it stuck in my mind because of June’s thoughts on ‘Lalela’ and loss. If it is proposed that people make the effort to listen to one another, then we need to engage the weight of that which is loss and allow for the voice of that experience to well up. Thinking about the “data” of a name what that could mean, consider the term ‘nommo’. It was coined by a scholar, Moelfi Asante in 1991. It described the African cultural belief in the “generative and creative power of the spoken word. As this happened to translate, culturally, that in some parts of Africa it was/is believed that children are empty, sort of lifeless beings until the parent breathes that life into them by giving them a name. As I understand it, words, names, and language are regarded as bearers of life. So, in that context, what is in a name? data? Life itself, for some? Imagine that is stripped away, along with your language and your homeland and family. A name then, becomes a final anchor of the self before enslavement—a memento, a mental stay against the tide of forced assimilation and the suppression of self into order to comply with the nature of enslavement. That’s all I have right now. It is something, I’ll continue to consider.

[emilyhee]

'You can't go to school in America, K to 12, whether you are white, black or whatever and come out on the other side of the experience without having a negative attitude about Africans and Africa-American people,'… Mr. Asante said he tells black children to take two sets of notes in class: 'a set to pass the examination and another set to keep your sanity.' 'You've got to write in the margins,' he said. 'When they say Shakespeare was the greatest writer who ever lived, you write it down so you can pass the test. But you write in the margins, 'This is nonsense.'

-Molefi Asante, 1990

[akosua-akosua]

I went to Temple and received my Master's in African-American Studies...that experience was horrific. I hope to never go through anything like it again in my life. This article is only a snippet of what my cohort and I went through. A SNIPPET! The man is not well psychologically and has done so much damage, but his idea of centering our thought on Africa, although not new, was very useful. Nonetheless, this article made me laugh but it also made me sad that we destroy ourselves, bicker over nonsense and ultimately create more work for our children, those who come after, to complete.