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The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America
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The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America

Two Volume Set
Edited by:

Other Titles in:
Ethnic Studies (General)

August 2015 | 992 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America provides an accessible ready reference on the retention and continuity of African culture within the United States. Our conceptual framework holds, first, that culture is a form of self-knowledge and knowledge about self in the world as transmitted from one person to another. Second, that African people continuously create their own cultural history as they move through time and space. Third, that African descended people living outside of Africa are also contributors to and participate in the creation of African cultural history. Entries focus on illuminating Africanisms (cultural retentions traceable to an African origin) and cultural continuities (ongoing practices and processes through which African culture continues to be created and formed). Thus, the focus is more culturally specific and less concerned with the broader transatlantic demographic, political and geographic issues that are the focus of similar recent reference works. We also focus less on biographies of individuals and political and economic ties and more on processes and manifestations of African cultural heritage and continuity.

Key features include:

  • A two-volume A-to-Z work, available in a choice of print or electronic formats
  • 350 signed entries, each concluding with Cross-references and Further Readings
  • 150 figures and photos
  • Front matter consisting of an Introduction and a Reader’s Guide organizing entries thematically to more easily guide users to related entries
  • Signed articles concluding with cross-references

“Organized along the same clean lines as a number of other SAGE encyclopedias published recently, and edited by a renowned scholar in the field of African and African-American Studies, these 250+ entries, from 140 authors around the world, present the multifaceted dimensions of African culture and how it has shaped lives in North America.  Academic and public libraries will certainly benefit from this set.”

M. Schumacher
American Reference Books Annual

A compendium valorizing African folkways and heritage, this two-volume set explores the range and continuity of lore on the continent and among diasporic disseminators from Egypt to South Africa. ...Entries define abstractions, for example, Negritude, Kwanzaa, Geechee, Stepping, Rastafari, Jonkannu, Ebonics, and Maroon. A meticulous index orders primary and secondary terms that point the way for deeper study and research by teacher, student, and scholar. Dialogues, a Br’er Rabbit cartoon; charts of learning systems and African crops; a map of Africans among the Olmec; and photos of everything from the Lift Ev’ry Voice Festival to basketry to djembe drums develop significance. Although signed entries rely heavily on generalizations and less on details, this work deserves a place in most public and academic libraries.

Mary Ellen Snodgrass
Booklist
Booklist

"...The encyclopedia broadly describes the different aspects of African cultural heritage that distinguish traits retained by enslaved Africans, those retained by their descendants until today versus those created or readopted more recently.  The work is well written...there is a thorough description of the symbols and their history...This work is suitable for library collections supporting advanced African or diasporic studies."

B. D. Singleton
California State University--San Bernardino
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ISBN: 9781452258218
£365.00

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