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This book presents a descriptive critical theory for reading
African Atlantic aesthetic production. In Haiti, Papa Legba is the
spirit whose permission must be sought to communicate with the
spirit world. He stands at and for the crossroads of language,
interpretation, and form and is considered to be like the voice of
a god. In ""Legba's Crossing"", Heather Russell examines how
writers from the United States and the anglophone Caribbean
challenge conventional Western narratives through innovative use,
disruption, and reconfiguration of form. Russell's in-depth
analysis of the work of James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Michelle
Cliff, Earl Lovelace, and John Edgar Wideman is framed in light of
the West African aesthetic principle of ashe, a quality ascribed to
art that transcends the prescribed boundaries of form. Ashe is
linked to the characteristics of improvisation and flexibility that
are central to jazz and other art forms. Russell argues that
African Atlantic writers self-consciously and self-reflexively
manipulate dominant forms that prescribe a certain trajectory of,
for example, enlightenment, civilization, or progress. She connects
this seemingly postmodern meta-analysis to much older West African
philosophy and its African Atlantic iterations, which she calls
'the Legba Principle'.
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Chosen (Paperback)
Heather Russell
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R521
R455
Discovery Miles 4 550
Save R66 (13%)
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Out of stock
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In Haiti, Papa Legba is the spirit whose permission must be sought
to communicate with the spirit world. He stands at and for the
crossroads of language, interpretation, and form and is considered
to be like the voice of a god. In "Legba's Crossing," Heather
Russell examines how writers from the United States and the
anglophone Caribbean challenge conventional Western narratives
through innovative use, disruption, and reconfiguration of form.
Russell's in-depth analysis of the work of James Weldon Johnson,
Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, Earl Lovelace, and John Edgar Wideman
is framed in light of the West African aesthetic principle of
"ashe," a quality ascribed to art that transcends the prescribed
boundaries of form. "Ashe" is linked to the characteristics of
improvisation and flexibility that are central to jazz and other
art forms. Russell argues that African Atlantic writers
self-consciously and self-reflexively manipulate dominant forms
that prescribe a certain trajectory of, for example, enlightenment,
civilization, or progress. She connects this seemingly postmodern
meta-analysis to much older West African philosophy and its African
Atlantic iterations, which she calls "the Legba Principle."
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