Africana Studies Commons^™

Storytelling And Puppetry, Susan Fulcher

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Librarian Susan Fulcher recounts the creation of a storytelling with puppets program she developed with puppeteer Dave Herzog, in which kids create their own puppet characters to be incorporated into existing stories such as Stone Soup.

“It’S Not Easy Bein’ Green”: Greenface And The Jazzy Frog Trope, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

One element of blackface minstrelsy was the representation of Black people as swamp characters, especially frogs. In her examination of the development of the “jazzy frog” as a transposition of greenface onto blackface, Richards traces the growth of the trope in popular film and cartoons of the early 20th century. She then considers Jim Henson’s creation of the popular puppet character Kermit as a variation on this trope, but with a different purpose: to represent Henson’s “vision of tolerance for difference and creative collaboration.” The “re-humanization” of the jazzy frog includes the 1967 hit song “I’m in Love with a …

Wear The Story Like A Jacket: Akbar Imhotep, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

This profile of Akbar Imhotep’s work as a puppeteer and storyteller in Atlanta in the late 20th century describes his connections to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the folk-art roots of his approach to puppetry, the unique puppet stage he made from old suitcases, and the process he uses to prepare for performances.

Black: :Body: :Gesture: From Puppetry To Performance & Design, Gabrielle Civil, Kelly Walters

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

In this visual document, Gabrielle Civil and Kelly Walters distill and recreate key aspects of their live dialogue on African-American puppetry, black performance art, material and digital design. What are examples of African American living objects in the 21st century? What does it mean to animate objects when, as a people, we were once considered to be living objects ourselves? Drawing on their own practice, these artists engaged these questions, activated audience discussion, and transformed the results into a new source text for further activation.

Black And Blackface In The Performing Object: Bullock, Chessé, Paris, The Jubilee Singers, And The Burdens Of … Everything, Ben Fisler

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The representation of Black identity through puppetry ranges from “grotesque exaggeration to near pictorial realism,” and engagement not only with racial stereotyping, but also the possibility of positive racial representation. Fisler details the extensive degree to which puppeteers in the early 20th century depended upon Black and blackface characters for their livelihood, and points out the complexities of such representations involving Black puppeteers of Federal Theater Project puppet companies, and the work of Creole puppet artist Ralph Chessé. Fisler argues that some white puppeteers, including Frank Paris, sought to portray such Black characters as Josephine Baker in a “potentially more …

Tar Baby: The Performance Of Object, Ra Malika Imhotep

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

This essay engages the figure of the “Tar Baby” as a guide through the theoretical terrain of Afro-Diasporic storytelling culture. Thinking about the role of gesture and voice in the repertoire of global Black performance, this presentation sets out to offer a nuanced Black feminist analysis of the sticky character and the impact of her diasporic flight. Calling in both theoretical work on Black performance and personal reflections on an engagement with the Tar Baby through storyteller and puppeteer Akbar Imhotep’s rendition of the story performed at the Wren’s Nest in Atlanta Georgia, the essay explores the ways Afro-Diasporic storytelling …

The Appropriation Of Blackness, Nehprii Amenii

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The continuing appropriation of Black culture in the U.S. is closely tied to the trauma and injustice of the African diaspora and the history of slavery. Black people, Amenii argues, need to re-appropriate themselves, through the “excavating and re-articulating of our intellectual heritage and knowledge systems.” Citing Ahmad Azzahir’s description of African modes of thinking as “based on spirituality, symbol, mythos, and harmonium,” she sees her own work as “creative anthropology” that draws on storytelling and image-making to create self-study. Her production Food for the Gods, “a multi-media performance installation created in response to the killings of Black Men by …

African Puppetry And Brazilian Mamulengo: Possible Links Between Symbolic And Material Representations, Izabela Brochado

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Although Brazil’s popular Mamulengo hand-puppet tradition is often considered to have primarily European roots, Brochado argues that “the primary source of the Mamulengo lies with African slaves.” Citing sources including puppeteers and folklorists explaining the origins of Mamulengo in northeast Brazil, Brochado argues for the African roots of the form, citing the relation of Mamulengo performance to Afro-Brazilian cult rituals; the commonality of often-comic sexual content in Mamulengo and in Yoruba puppetry of Nigeria and Benin; as well as the similar mechanics of puppets from both traditions which display work activities. She concludes that “even if African puppets were not …

Women's Legal Rights, In Oxford Research Encyclopedia Of African History (2019), Johanna E. Bond

Books and Chapters

In the colonial and postcolonial period, African women have advocated for legal reforms that would improve the status of women across the continent. During the colonial period, European common and civil law systems greatly influenced African indigenous legal systems and further entrenched patriarchal aspects of the law. In the years since independence, women’s rights advocates have fought, with varying degrees of success, for women’s equality within the constitution, the family, the political arena, property rights, rights to inheritance, rights to be free from gender-based violence, rights to control their reproductive lives and health, rights to education, and many other aspects …

Amjambo Africa! (January 2019), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Public Charge Rule Change ..Page 3

Breaking News from DRC ......Page 4

City-Wide Meeting ................Page 6

Multicultural NightSMCC......Page 7

Global Awareness & Repsonsibility Conference.....................Pages 8 & 9

Axels Samuntu, PAE .............Page 11

Heritage Restaurant.............Page 12

Poetry ..............................Page 13/14

Deqa Dhalac..........................Page 14

On Being a Somali-Mainer ..Page 15

Imagining Revolutionary Feminism: Communist Asia And The Women Of The Black Panther Party, Benjamin Young

Research & Publications

Using newspapers, autobiographies, and interviews, this article examines the ways in which women of the Black Panther Party imagined the women of Vietnam, China, and North Korea as radical archetypes during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Using Judy Wu’s theory of “radical orientalism” in conversation with Ashley Farmer’s concept of the “gendered imaginary,” I argue that the Panther women imagined the women of “the East” as pioneers in world revolution and women’s liberation in order to protest against gendered injustices within the Party and broader U.S. society. This article also investigates the realities on the ground for the women …

Protected Areas In Tanzania: The Coevolution Of Conservation, Communities, And Conflict, Rachael Vannatta

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The consequences of human activities through territorial occupation, resource extraction, and waste deposition, all characteristics of the Anthropocene, have severely impacted biodiversity. In some countries, passing and enforcing environmental legislation to protect the environment has proven to be a major challenge. Various types of terrestrial protected areas have been established to safeguard, manage, and utilize the biodiversity of non-human species and anthropocentrically-defined natural resources, cover approximately 14.7% of the earth’s surface, according to the World Bank (n.d) and IUCN (2008). With 38% of its land dedicated to protected areas, Tanzania exceeds the global average, but not without controversy. Critics of …

Official Senegalese Photograph Collection, Meaghan Alston

Prints and Photographs Department

The Official Senegalese Photographs document political and cultural activity in the West African nation of Senegal in the 1960s and 1970s. The bulk of the images show Senegalese government activity and political leaders including Léopold Sédar Senghor, Daniel Cabou, Jean Collin, and Abdou Diouf. The collection also includes events such as The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Boy scout Meetings, and sports events.

The Professional Is Political: On Citational Practice And The Persistent Problem Of Academic Plunder, Brittney M. Edmonds

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …

Resenhando Autoras Negras: Feministas, Plurais E Diásporicas/ Reviewing Black Authors: Feminists, Plurals, And Diasporic, Sarah S. Ohmer, Alexandra Lima Da Silva

Publications and Research

Este texto realiza um mapeamento de edições de autoras do pensamento feminista negro dos Estados Unidos e a circulação de tais livros no mercado editorial brasileiro. Procura compreender os significados do movimento de publicação de autoras negras no Brasil. O texto conclui que a emergência da autoria de mulheres negras no Brasil é um processo permeado pelas relações desiguais e pela necessidade de enfrentar lógicas heteronormativas, masculinas e eurocentradas. Resenhar obras de mulheres negras evidência um campo fértil, com repertórios plurais e diaspóricos.

This article maps out the various U.S. Black Feminist Thought publications translated into Portuguese and their circulation …

Power Puppets In Portable Pulpits: A Personal Account Of Puppet Ministry In The African American Community, Yolanda Sampson

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Yolanda Sampson relates the history of her path into puppet ministry and her PuppeTainment Productions company, which presents Christian stories in a “hip, entertaining way,” bringing “biblical principles to life for twenty-first century children.” She recounts her initiation in puppet ministry at the age of twelve, and her development of stories about the dangers of drug culture in the Washington, D.C. area, as well as her use of puppetry in beauty pageant competitions, and her ventures into puppet video productions such as What Time is It? and Tell It Like It Is. Sampson took a three-year hiatus to earn her …

Schroeder Cherry And His Puppets: Playing With Puppets, From Childhood To Adulthood, Schroeder Cherry

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Schroeder Cherry relates his path into puppetry, from childhood television shows to his exposure to European puppetry in Switzerland; and later an apprenticeship with Chicago puppeteer Gary Jones. After earning a master’s degree in museum education at George Washington University, Cherry began developing puppet performances for the Smithsonian Institution and other museums. Travels in Africa furthered his appreciation of that continent’s puppetry, and influenced his creation of such shows as How the Sun Came to the Sky. Cherry has developed an array of rod-puppet characters (including DiAndre, Ms. Lily, and Tevin) which he incorporates into museum performances and such …

Egg Whites: A Short Puppet Film Script, Alva Rogers

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Alva Rogers’ script for a short puppet film is a magical realist treatment of a mother’s efforts to help her young daughter, an unnamed African American girl, fall asleep in their New York apartment. The mother explains straightforwardly how she will make muffins for the girl’s breakfast, but the film then shifts into a surreal territory where the girl travels on a moonbeam to the sun, and then appears in a rowboat in a vast ocean, where she wants to plant a flower—all while the mother is baking in the kitchen. The sea explains that the girl’s flower will not …

Living Objects: Introduction, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

In her introduction to this collection of Living Objects: African American Puppetry online texts, co-curator Paulette Richards gives an overview of “the power of performing objects to disrupt dehumanizing views of blackness,” and the continuing history of African American object performance in relation to other aspects of popular culture and writing, despite the suppression of African figurative sculpture and object performance, and the persistence of racist stereotypes born of blackface minstrelsy. Relating W. E. B. DuBois’s sense of African American “double consciousness” to the inherent “double vision” of puppet and object performance, Richards proposes a “distinct lineage of African American …