Produção Nacional
Revisado por pares
Oriki for Robert Farris Thompson
2017; UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center; Volume: 50; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1162/afar_a_00358
ISSN1937-2108
AutoresHenry John Drewal, C. Daniel Dawson, Susan Mullin Vogel, Brooke Davis Anderson, Rowland Abiọdun, Donald J. Cosentino, Perkins Foss, Neil Clarke, Zeca Ligiéro, Lowery Stokes Sims, Leslie King Hammond, John F. Santos, David T. Doris, John Mason,
ResumoWhen Drewal was invited to write a praise piece for Robert Farris Thompson for this issue celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of African Arts, he soon realized it was beyond his body-mind-heart, because Bob himself is larger than life, a person who has touched and inspired so many folks in so many walks of life and thought. So Drewal contacted his dear friend and colleague C. Daniel Dawson, who may know Bob better than anyone, as well as Bob's immense circle of admirers. Drewal proposed that they solicit a variety of perspectives from the worldwide Master T “posse” and create a “posse praise poem” in his honor. We had only a short time to pull this together so we both reached out to friends far and wide, gave them four weeks to compose and send their thoughts and feelings in any way they chose. Some have written odes, others have sent poems. One sent a painting. Another sent a citation. Others have contributed photos of Bob past and present. Another sent a song that will be played (http://international.ucla.edu//media/podcasts/PROFE_T-ol-guw.mp3), and a dance that will be stepped (http://international.ucla.edu/media/mp4/drewal-dance-4j-kib.mp4) … All of these acts are acts of love meant for a person who inspires love and more. Where would we be in our understanding and appreciation for the arts of Africa and its many diasporas if the gods had not given us Bob? We think, not very far. He continues to show us the way to be and to think as he works on his latest opus on mambo. We hear his voice, we see his smile, we sense the move in his groove, and we learn once more to share the passion he possesses. Enjoy these words, images, and sounds of praise— this multi-oriki is for you!Henry John Drewal“Flash” and “Spirit” come to my body-mind when I think about Robert Farris Thompson, affectionately known as “Bob” or “Master T.” His is a spirit that flashes with brilliance, depth, and richness. That extraordinary spirit inspired his Yoruba friends to give him a “pet name” that playfully riffed on his, calling him “Robert Fáàrí tó ńsùn!“—”Robert, the one who plays and enjoys life, even when sleeping!” He is an elder whose presence among us continues to inspire and encourage us to be bold in our feeling, thinking, and doing. I have admired him ever since our first encounters back in the 1960s, after my return from two years of teaching, learning, and a sculpting apprenticeship among Yoruba people in Nigeria. In the midst of graduate work at Columbia University writing my dissertation on Gelede masquerades, I heard he had just come out with Black Gods and Kings: Yoruba Art at UCLA (1971). I panicked, thinking he had just written everything I intended to write in my dissertation! Fortunately for me, his Gelede chapter was a short, pithy, and insightful one, so there was still room for me to say something original. Whew! I pressed on and wrote to him to ask if he would be an outside reader for me as I developed the work. Even though we had not met in person, he wrote back in his distinctive hand, saying he would be pleased and honored to do so. I was embraced by his unfailing, boundless generosity of spirit, his willingness to share and mentor, encourage and guide. He is affectionately known as “Master T”—and for me, not because he was the Master of Timothy Dwight College at Yale, but “Master Teacher” as well.His classes at Yale are legendary. He inspired not only students of Africa and African Diaspora worlds, artists and art historians, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, sociologists, writers, poets, dancers, and musicians—he inspired a generation of thinkers and makers and doers in the arts in all forms. I got to attend only one of those classes. Students were expected to embody the lessons he taught—with drumming, dancing, chanting, singing. And as I think about my own apprenticeships with Yoruba artists, in 1965 and again in 1978, and what I learned about myself and the embodied knowledge and wisdom of artists, the muscle memories and sensitivities that made them virtuosic creators, I think about Bob drumming on a lectern, or telling a joke in a distinctive accent, or getting down in his dance stance and mesmerizing his audiences with his joy and focus. When African Art in Motion came out (1974), it opened up a whole vista of sensory experience to be theorized and explored. So I continue to work on this (and its working on me!) with an approach I term sensiotics, because of his boldness in exploring the things that animate him sensorially—music, dance, and art. If Bob is, as he calls himself, a “mambo-freak,” then he has inspired me to be a sensiotic “salsa-freak.”I also know his early and sustained work in the many diasporas of African artists—especially those in the Americas and the Caribbean—was the foundation for a perspective that has come to be known as the Black Atlantic World. Before any others, he bridged the intellectual gap that often divides Africanists from Americanists, pushing them to recognize the deep and complex cultural beliefs and practices on both sides of this Black Atlantic World that time and space have shaped, and continue to shape. Witness his masterful and corrective account of the history of tango—that art history of love (2005)! For those who make those smooth and seductive moves, ignorant of tango's African and Black Atlantic origins, Master T has given them knowledge and understanding. He will do the same with mambo—giving credit where credit is due. His commitment to the truth, his passion for justice, and his intellectual honesty and humility make him an elder to honor and emulate. I feel blessed to have him as a mentor and friend. Continue to teach and preach Master T!—Ase! Ire O!This contact sheet is a flashback to pioneer days: RFT's first big exhibition of his life long project, the 1968 “African and Afro-American Art: the Transatlantic Tradition,” 225 objects exhibited by the Museum of Primitive Art. With an undertone of incredulity, New York Magazine explained, “The show is designed to offer proof-positive that the Negro has a vast and telling art historical tradition. There are immense ties between the visual arts of West Africa with the arts of the blacks in North America, the Caribbean, and South America …” The catalogue text was too late to print, but sixteen years later, it formed the core of Flash of the Spirit. Peter Moore, a prominent photographer of the downtown art world, photographed the exhibition objects and gave me this contact sheet of us installing. You see RFT presiding over objects waiting to be mounted, Frances Fleming hanging an Ibibio mask, and me examining a headdress (loan from the Nigerian Museum?). Also on that sheet—shots from a loft showing of a Nam June Paik exhibition. Bob was always avant garde.I took courses from RFT at Yale while studying for my PhD at The Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. During those years I was also full time Assistant Registrar at the Museum of Primitive Art and met Bob 1968 in the whirlwind of his show. Twenty-five years later, as Executive Director of the Museum for African Art, I was lucky enough to midwife his definitive exhibition and catalogue on the same subject, the monumental and unforgettable “Face of the Gods.” Bob was always trying to do fifty things in the time a normal person needed for one, and this was a big, hugely ambitious show requiring many feats none of us had accomplished before. As deadlines approached Bob would strap his computer into the front seat and drive to New York so the Museum staff could pry his text “out of the machine.” He would sit across from me discussing installation challenges with a never-mentioned wad of herbal material plastered onto the top of his head. Everybody understood that wad and the genius beneath it was giving us much more than another exhibition. In the course of the show, visitors left offerings of hundreds of dollars in change and small bills on the altars in the galleries. I later learned the staff, wearing gloves, periodically cleared it away and donated it to an AIDS charity.RFT adores two of my most favorite people on the planet: my grandmother and my mother.My elegant and beautiful-in-every-way grandmother, Virginia Davis Taylor, was a secretary at the Yale University Art Gallery when RFT was a student; RFT adored her.My sunny and spirited-in-every-way mother, Pamela Bisbee Simonds, worked at Dwight Hall on the Yale campus when RFT was a professor (my mom would on occasion join his drumming circles on the grounds of Old Campus—uninvited, no doubt, but always most welcome). RFT adores her.Because of my grandmother, RFT and I have a special bond born out of mutual admiration for her and that depth of feeling that develops between two people who knew an elder-turned-ancestor, and who wouldn't care to ignore or overlook the deep connection created by this kind of generational history.Because of my mom, I am lucky to have a friendship with RFT that goes back to 1986!In 1986 unbeknownst to my mom I was reading a book like no other, Flash of the Spirit, in preparation for my first solo trip to Africa.I was planning to travel to Africa not for research nor with a grant, or with any other goal than to travel to a place on this planet that was entirely unknown by my very well-traveled family. When I was in my early twenties I interviewed family members, for whom travel was a very important part of living and learning, and came to find out that no one in my family had been to West Africa (they had been to East Africa, South Africa, and the northern countries).My decision to travel to West Africa for several months was born out of a young adult's desire to traverse new landscapes and experience places, peoples, and cultures that were unknown to my father, grandfathers, and other members of my well-traveled family.My mother was a bit worried about my solo adventure, so she asked me to come to New Haven to have lunch with “an African expert at Yale.” At that age, I was not too interested in the academic life at Yale and I resisted until she told me who it was: Robert Farris Thompson! Hurrying down to New Haven to have lunch in Dwight Hall with my mom and Master T, I was so excited to meet this singular mind! We sat down in the Commons Dining Hall. Thompson immediately asked me if I had a scrap of paper, onto which he quickly sketched a map of the continent, and then crowded it with skull and bones iconography. He finished his map. He looked at my mom. He looked at me, and said, ‘If you promise your mom and me that you will not visit any of the countries at war [a.k.a. the skull and bones], then I will bless this trip!” While I was looking for adventure I wasn't seeking that much of an adventure and eagerly obliged. He then said, “You are going to fall in love with the continent and return many times. You are also going to have bad teeth because you will only have beer and orange soda for drinking.”I still have that map. It has been with me on every adventure everywhere since 1986. And so has RFT: Africa, Africa again, NYC, NC, New Orleans, and Africa again.Since that first lunch, we have had countless lunches together in New Haven with our family.I have never been a student at Yale, but I have always been a student of RFT. RFT has been a mentor, friend, colleague, and supporter! But so much more.RFT and I have discussed not only Africa but American culture too—we have a full-on appreciation for the underappreciated artist from Tennessee Bessie Harvey. We are both intrigued beyond belief by memory jugs. We have long seen the genius of Lonnie Holley and Thornton Dial, James Hampton and Nellie Mae Rowe.I am realizing while writing this that during our thirty-plus year friendship RFT has never said “no” to me … he even traveled thru a Nor'easter to get to a lecture I had organized for him to give at Winston-Salem State University.RFT has lectured at conferences I have organized, in organizations I have run. He has written in books I have authored and published.The cherry on top of these activities was the “Flash” conference I organized with Danny Dawson in fall of 2014 in New Orleans, to recognize the importance of that book, the book that introduced me to RFT in the beginning.RFT has shown me that the history of art is not a straight line and that the discipline deepens with the appreciation that what we don't yet know is what we are working so hard to uncover and explore.Every time I am with RFT—like all of us—I am in awe of his mind and his moves, his head and his heart, but I am also reminded—as is he because we always talk about it, every time—of our shared adoration for my grandmother and our mutual enjoyment of my mother. It is quite something to see your two favorite women reflected in this giant of art history, every. time. you. meet. him.I am certain that I will never have a friendship like this one again.Ẹni a bá bá lábà, là ńpè ní Baba.Ẹ̀ ẹ́ gbó, ẹ̀ ẹ́ tọ́, Àṣẹ.Orógbó ni í gbó’ni í sáyé, obì ni í bi ibi sọ́run.It is the elder one meets on a farm that we call Baba (Father/Master)(Thus, it is only proper that I respectfully refer to Professor Robert Farris Thompson as Baba/Master).May you live long and remain physically and mentally sound. Àṣẹ.Orógbo [bitter kola] it is that enables one to live long while obi [four-lobed kolanut] drives away evil forces.Mo júbà oÀdáṣe ni í hun niÌbà kì Í hun ọmọ ènìyànBí ekòló bá júbà ilẹ̀Ilẹ̀ á ya'nuBí ọmọdé bá júbà àgbàÁ roko ọjọ́ ayé d'alẹ́Mo júbà o.We acknowledge your presence and pay our respects to you as our elderTo embark on any action unilaterally without your support is not only to invite failure but to court disaster.Whenever the earthworm pays homage to the dry and solid earth, the earth opens its doors to the boneless earthwormSimilarly, when younger folks pay due respect to their elders, they live to a ripe old age.Today, we pay our respect to you as our elder and we acknowledge your presence.Baba Thompson's life and work brings to mind the following excerpt from the oríkì of the legendary sculptor, Àrè, Làgbàyí, ará Ọ̀jọwọ̀n, “The itinerant Làgbàyí, citizen of Ọ̀jọwọ̀n.” More importantly, we note the enthusiastic reception he receives every time he returns from one of his celebrated carving expeditions:Níjọ́ tí Àrè Làgbàyí ń toko ọ̀nà á bọ̀Apá ń sáá lapáÌrókò wọn a dìgbò l’ọ̀pẹ̀Wọn láwọn ò mọ bii Làgbàyí ó sọgbá ọnà yí kàẸni o kúrú, ńtiro ni wọ́n ń tiroẸni o gùn, wọn a bẹ̀rẹ̀Wọ́n n se, “Kújénrá, Agbósokùn”‘Lé wo lò ń lọỌ̀nà wo lò ń rèǸ bá mọbi ò ń rèMa bá ọ lọKújẹ́nrá o, AgbósokùnỌmọ a gbẹ́gi wúrúkú mú ṣe láyabaÀrè, Làgbàyí, ará Ọ̀jọwọ̀nOn the day Làgbàyí, the itinerant artist was returning from one of his carving expeditions,Apá trees collided with one another in trepidation.Ìrókò trees collided with palm trees in great fear.They wondered where next Làgbàyí would place his load of carving implements.Short people in the crowd stood on their toes,While very tall spectators stooped down [to catch a glimpse of him].They all exclaimed “Kújenrá, whose other name is Agbósokùn,Where are you going?On which road are you going to tread?I wish I knew where you were going,I would have gone with you.Ikújenrá, whose other name is Agbósokùn,Offspring of those who carved small pieces of wood and turned them into queensLàgbàyí, the itinerant citizen of Ọ̀jọwọ̀n.”1Given Thompson's own literal and intellectual journeys and his extraordinarily warm reception in classrooms, lecture halls and exhibition venues after returning from his numerous research trips to Africa, Brazil, South America, and the Caribbean, he is eminently qualified to be called an ‘Àrè'. Àrè Làgbàyí was very fondly remembered in Yoruba oral traditions as the artist who pioneered new forms and styles in carving. He set new aesthetic standards at home and abroad. His elevated status in the society enabled him to interact with, and influence his patrons, among them Yoruba sovereigns, chiefs and diviners. Where Làgbàyí's carvings have not survived for us appreciate, Thompson's intellectual work and legacy are very much with us and will inspire future generations of scholars in African art.Painting and caption by José BediaDuring a 1992 interview published in African Arts (reprinted in Aesthetic of the Cool, 2011), I asked Bob Thompson whether there was a god in his life. Without skipping a beat, he replied,What I found most compelling in Thompson's response was his affirmation of Black Gods—not merely as powerful metaphors (pace Wole Soyinka) but as living realities who intersect with modern life—making his confiteor at a time when declaring for Jesus (or other divine beings) in a personal way could destroy your credibility with academic colleagues, afraid of being charged with violating “Enlightenment principles” by appreciating religious praxis as something a white professor might actually do. Clearly this was not a worry for Bob. He isn't in the habit of checking his Black Atlantic spirituality at JFK customs, nor in finding the gods of Afro-Atlantis ancillary to other contemporary divinities. As he further revealed, “I don't think I was prepared to read the Holy Bible until I came back from two and a half years in Nigeria, and opened up King David's psalms. He finally spoke to me. His images had laterite on them. Nigeria prepared me for even more: how to handle religiosity in a way that can get at spirit and tradition without any awkward phrasing.”This was the kind of discourse that should have made William F. Buckley, Yale graduate and patron saint of Goldwater-Reagan-Cruz conservatism, shout hallelujah. In 1951, a generation before Thompson published Flash of the Spirit, Buckley had published God and Man at Yale, decrying the absence of any transcendent metaphysics among the Yale professoriate, or more generally, among America's soi-disant intelligentsia. Buckley envisioned God and Yale on a collision course, for, in words which continue to inspire Tea Party Trumpistas, Buckley wrote, “I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world.”As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, it'll probably come true.” Of course, when Buckley intoned “God,” he was not referring to Obatala or Nzambi Mpungu. But a generation later, members of the Yale football team were wearing T-shirts imprinted with Ashe, while Bob's grad students were confronting the orisha, minkisi, and vodun with personal commitments far transcending the strategies of “participant observation.” Much of this revolution in scholarly attitudes can be traced to the influence of Flash of the Spirit, through its declamation on the moral attributes of Black Gods and its hermeneutic unraveling of dikenga and firma as they perdure in the philosophies of Africa and its diaspora. While Flash ushered in a new place for Black Atlantic religion inside academia (though not in ways that Buckley might have appreciated), it assumed an even more powerful place outside the academy, where it was included alongside William Bascom's volumes on Ifa divination, as canonical theology in the consultation rooms of botanicas from Miami to LA, and propagated in the theological tracts of John Mason's Yoruba Theological Archministry in Brooklyn.The credibility of Bob's scholarship derives in large part from his religious commitments, as he explained when I asked him about the role of ecstasy in his fieldwork:Bob's sermons turn Malinowski's methodology on its head. We now go to the field to learn from masters. To reshape lessons taught by Voltaire and Marx in order to reinfuse their data with the ecstatic, to demonstrate that religion is deep structure and not epiphenomenon. “To me, Afro-Atlantic methodology is by artistic example. Study and absorb Coltrane, don't ask how he did it. Paint Betye and Allison Saar until you become yourself. Until emergent identity makes all those influences move for you.” So Master T issues the call to African art historians, not as some John the Baptist crying in the desert, but as St. Paul in a J. Press suit, preaching a New Age revival for some very old religions.As part of his study of African dance criticism, Robert Farris Thompson on occasion entered into the dance himself, and in doing so, elicited commentary on his own efforts that in turn revealed perceptive insights by local critics. As described in African Art in Motion (1974:259), herewith a few observations regarding his own efforts:Beginning in a place whose name—“The Pass” (El Paso)— emanates from the idea of “to proceed” on the banks the Grand River of the North (Rio Grande), was enlisted here a man, a spirit, to journey there, across a primordial liquid expanse that under his gaze would come to be redefined for us all, on the way to the land of Ancestors he did not know but knew him, to the banks of Odo Yewa, in the realm of the primordial hunter-healer Eyinle, to receive keys to unlocking windows, doors, channels, portals, frequencies and ultimately insights we were all waiting for. Who would think? How? Why?Innate curiosity? Ambition? Integrity? Generosity? Awareness? Open-mindedness? Instincts? All? That would allow him to become Asiwaju, the one who goes before, a scout per se. A beacon Illuminating the Path for those of us whose destiny it was/is to come his way on our way, on the journey that we have been charged by our Ori to navigate. It is as Yoruba philosophy teaches, his destiny and it is our destiny to know him. He has done his job.We have to decide how to approach ours. Not that his is necessarily done, only Olodumare, Ori, and Ifa can know that, but what he has accomplished to this point is more “Elephant” than most could even consider of trying to chew! Hence, we take note and we celebrate, as we should.It is often recommended that one follow the Path. For some, like RFT, it is not about following the Path. It's more about going where there is no path and leaving a trail. Easier said than done. There is no model, no plan. There are examples, but how does one quantify that? It is not something that everyone, anyone can do. To emulate the product of a singular mold. Nor is it something that one really can plan to do. It is ultimately who someone is and as a result it is what that someone does. But then there is a catch, choice!I have been taught, and I believe, that it is frequently the ancestors that choose. And the ancestors are selective in who they choose because their agenda, their priority is not necessarily consistent with ours. IF the ancestors do choose one, they call. When they call, first of all we have to be paying attention so we hear the call. If we do, we have choices. To answer the call or not. If we do decide to answer their call, and if we do then conduct ourselves consistent with the appropriate standards, then the ancestors will lead us to where, who, what, when and how we need for the next step, phase, stage and we hopefully progress. Some of us get stuck, lose our way, get distracted or otherwise diverted and some of us perhaps were/are not on the right path to begin with. That's another conversation.In the case of RFT I think it's safe to say we have witnessed someone who was selected, was chosen, was called, did hear, did choose to answer the call, conducted himself according to the standards appropriately, was given access and then turned around and shared it. How lucky are we? I think it's safe to say, We're all the better for the journey of RFT!!!I've been blessed to know a few great individuals along my way. Perhaps we all have. I consider Robert Farris Thompson to be one of those who I am indebted to for his vision, his work, his commitment and generosity.Collectively our paths, our journeys, our thought processes have been nourished by the walk of RFT. We've been given the opportunity to peek behind and beyond the veil into realms that before him, were ignored, dismissed, overlooked, frequently misinterpreted and commonly fragmented and disconnected. Through his approach, his efforts, his creativity, generosity, his humanity, Humpty Dumpty is a bit closer to being put back together. We can give thanks and we can celebrate. And we can honor one who has done so much to get us there.Translation from the Portuguese by Isis McElroyAlthough I am not a former student or close academic colleague of Robert Farris Thompson, he has been a subtle yet crucial influence on my life and self-perception ever since I first read his essay “African Influence on the Art of the United States” in the early 1970s when I was in graduate school. This was his contribution to the publication for Black Studies in the University, a symposium organized in 1967 by the Black Student Alliance at Yale, a group that included Craig Foster, the cousin of my longtime friend and colleague Leslie King Hammond. As I searched for more comparable input about my heritage and history, I took in the 1974 exhibition on the Black Atlantic that he was involved at the Museum for African Art (when it was housed in a townhouse on West 54th Street across the street from MoMA). There was no catalogue to accompany that exhibition, but one was promised for the future, and finally in 1983 Professor Thompson published Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, which became a cultural and artistic bible for so many of us. Then over the next three decades I felt he recruited me to see African art in motion rather than merely on a pedestal in a vitrine, to look upon the Face of the Gods in African-based altars, practice the art of the Cool, and to reconfigure my notions about the ubiquitous dance form of the tango.So I was pleasantly surprised but ready when Gloria Khury—then at the press of the State University of Pennsylvania and now proprietor of Periscope Publishing—contacted me to write an introduction to an anthology of Professor Thompson's essays. After a bit of haggling over the focus of the selection and a gentle rebuke on my part for the overly masculine focus of the content, we concluded Aesthetic of the Cool: Afro-Atlantic Art and Music. This project enriched my perception of the unique phenomenon that is Robert Farris Thompson. In his essays—which included several unexpected early analyses of Afro-Latino jazz—he revealed himself to be as much rigorous scholar as engaged critic; as much innovative theoretician as enthusiastic fan. The consummate cultural flaneur, he revealed that he was able to move in and out of and around in multiple cultural contexts with equal ease and perception, be it a village in Africa or a jazz club in the West Village of New York City. Whether writing early reviews of Afro-jazz or parsing the visual polyrhythms of quilts by African American women, he taught us how we were cool and complex and stunningly original.Thompson's contribution over the last five decades to the growth and development of African and African American studies as a strong and more widespread academic specialization is immeasurable. His intellectual strategies have been benchmarks for new approaches to art historical analyses of cultural production in Africa evaluating African cultural practice based on criteria from its own context rather than solely from outside points of view. As if heeding the cautionary tone of the Surrealist renegade Georges Batille, he rejects the habitual hierarchical and patronizing positioning of the “civilized” (i.e., European or white American) over the “primitive” (African, Pacific, First Peoples) that has reinforced the power relationships of colonialism and postcolonialism. He draws on the cultural philosophies and practices that contextualize artistic production in Africa, taking into account realms of temperament and demeanor, as well as conditions of place and “territory.” As Thompson surveys the “continuity in change” of the “indelible cultural codes” of African cultures he also analyzes “transoceanic” pairings of cultural manifestations in the Cross River, Lower Niger area and western Cuba; Dahomey (now Benin) and Haiti; in the Akan regions of Ghana and those in Surinam.We also have access to Thompson's path to his intellectual and experiential states. In an interview with anthropologist and curator Donald Consentino, he eloquently traces his life journey from Dudley School in El Paso, Texas, in an ambiance where boogeywoogey, rhythm and blues, and rock music revealed to him “that African Americans had a different spiritual vision.” What is fascinating is his ability to observe various manifestations, experience various things in different contexts—Elegba shrine in New York, James Brown on stage, Cuban rumba music, and country music—to “role-switch fast” and make connections with all these elements in such a way that they eventually coalesced into an aesthetic and art historical practice.In summary, Thompson never fails to provoke and challenge us with ideas that spark a reordering of our priorities and reexamination of long-standing assumptions about race and class. His intellectual endeavors have forged lineages in the work of scholars such as Rowland Abiodun, Suzanne Blier, Sylvia Boone, Henry Drewal, Kate Ezra, Alisa LaGamma, Babatunde Lawal, Moyo Okediji, Mary Nooter Roberts, Zoë E. Strother, Susan Vogel, and Roslyn Walker. He also can be said to have reestablished the awareness of the unique black Atlantic identity among Africans on this side of the Atlantic that is the focus of the scholarship of individuals such as Houston Baker, Kamau Braithwaite, Henry Louis Gates, Gray Gundaker, Leslie King Hammond, Eileen Southern, Deborah Ambush, C. Daniel Dawson, Kellie Jones, Marta Moreno Vega, Sterling Stuckey, John Vlach, and Maude Waldman. In the context of the world in 2017 his work only gains cogency for all of us who find our identity, our culture, even our very being reviled and discredited by the larger society. And so I offer this
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