Allen F Roberts
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 96976 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Allen F Roberts |
| NOMBRES | Allen F |
| APELLIDO | Roberts |
| FIRMA | ROBERTS A F |
| AFILIACIONES | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9024-1542 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 97 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 212 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 96 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1973 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Pape Diop's Mystical Graffiti
Contemporary Dakar has long been a compellingly cosmopolitan city situated at the westernmost point of the African continent (Diouf 2001). Transactional geographies have made the region important to the Black Atlantic, especially during early phases of the transatlantic slave trade (see Barry 1998). Global networking has continued, such as during French occupation when Senegalese intellectuals joined progressive anticolonial debates around the wo…
Devotional Spaces of a Global Saint
Doran's Being in Africa
Doran had very particular ways of doing almost everything: always all-in, always full-tilt. Exhibition-oriented research was among the activities he loved most in life, and Doran could become so set on packing as much into a day as possible that niceties like eating, finding a little shade during hottest hours, and slowing down to take a couple extra breaths were low priorities. Doran's exhilaration was infectious, as was the sheer joy he took in…
AfricaMuseum reopening Tervuren, Belgium
The reopening in December 2018 of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA/MRAC), now also known as the AfricaMuseum, after five years of renovation (Fig. 1), has been a major event, not only in Belgium but way beyond its borders. Given the world wide celebrity of this interdisciplinary institution with its extraordinary collection of historical artifacts, I have considered it essential to solicit multiple voices and views. The commissioning of …
Is Repatriation Inevitable
Debates about repatriation of human remains and significant cultural materials to their communities of origin, including objects deemed “art” following culturally determined assessments, have raged for many years. One need only consider how the “madness” of returning the famed fifth-century bce “Elgin Marbles,” as they are known in the UK after the man who purloined them from the Acropolis in the early nineteenth century, is debated as an issue o…
Reflection
Tourist advertisements often depict an Africa filled with an astounding variety of wildlife, to the exclusion of local people (except insofar as they may provide “cultural” performances for safaris). By contrast, over the centuries African artists have depicted few of the domestic and wild animals whose environments they share, and the ones that are chosen are often not those emblematic of Western fantasies. Instead artists have concentrated on a…
Reflection
The legendary Aesop, whom Herodotus ( Histories , 2.134) places on Samos in the sixth century BCE, did not write a single fable with his own hand. The fables that have survived under his name were written in the centuries after his death, composed by a diverse set of writers who labeled their stories “Aesop’s” with little concern for historical accuracy. We are left with hundreds of tales and anecdotes scattered across the remains of classical li…
Striking Iron
Life has an edge, sometimes keen, sometimes blunt. Enter iron—digging, cutting, shining, or rusting, but always transforming circumstances. Iron is “born” when smelting releases it from rock. How did sub-Saharan Africans affect these complex processes, sculpt natural-draft furnaces by hand, and create malleable iron to change the world? How did smelters and smiths know which ore to select, which wood to cut for charcoal, and how to position logs …
Of Snipe Hunts and Errant Bats, or, Will an Anthropologist Ever Learn
In recent years, a number of humanities scholars have called for event-driven ethnographies of the particular as a tactic to mitigate the flattening of other people's everyday lives, thoughts, and purposes, which has been so frequently represented in literature. What "messiness," what oddities have been omitted from accounts that generalize about entire communities based upon a researcher's few interactions with a few interlocutors? The following…
Relations Between Thoughts and Hands”
After fifty years of uninterrupted publication, African Arts is venerable by any measure. Given how sadly shorter-lived most humanities journals have proven, that African Arts remains relevant to sharp-edged creativity across and about the continent is all the more remarkable. An argument can be made that African Arts has been progressive from its inception, insofar as Eurocentric notions of what constitutes “art” have been challenged through in-…
The path of sainthood
The great majority of Senegalese are Muslims, and most follow three Sufi orders—the Tijaniya, Muridiya, and Layennes. The first was introduced from north Africa, and the other two were founded in Senegal itself.1 Each has its specificities of practice and history, but all share a visual performative, the study of which permits one to grasp the dynamic nature of expressive commonalities as well as singularities.2 Understanding such a perspective b…
Senses of Time
More than fifty years ago, the art historian George Kubler wrote that time is, “like mind, not knowable as such” (1962:13).1 Kubler was concerned with human difficulties in understanding time other than by looking back upon the material record to assess processes of change and permanence. He did not, however, question how time is conceived in situation-specific modes or how it might play out differently based on location. We do live in a world ma…
Les arts de la citoyenneté au Sénégal
Icons from the end of days
Remarkable street paintings in a neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal, depict half the countenance of an African holy man named Seydina Issa and half that of Jesus Christ, the images joined by an interface of golden blessing. Another street painting based upon a photograph of Seydina Issa depicts him with studio lights reflecting from his forehead in the form of a brilliant cross. The man is a saint (wali Allah, ‘Companion of God’) of Senegal's smalles…
Exhibition Reviews
Luc de Heusch 1927–2013
September 01 2013 Luc de Heusch 1927–2013 Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts is Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and an editor of African Arts. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts is Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and an editor of African Arts. [email protected] Online Issn: 1937-210…
Kisangani
March 01 2013 Kisangani: A Chronicle of Return Virginie Dupray, Virginie Dupray Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Virginie Dupray has been managing director of Studios Kabako since 2003. Trained in European Economy (HEC–Paris and the University of Cologne) and Art History, she has directed communications and public relations for the French Institute of the United Kingdom in London…
In extremis death and life in 21st-century haitian art
(2013). In extremis death and life in 21st-century haitian art. Material Religion: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 264-266
Picha
September 01 2011 Picha: The Second Biennale of Photography and Video Art, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, October 2010 Patrick Mudekereza, Patrick Mudekereza Patrick Mudekereza divides his time between Lubumbashi and Brussels. He holds a degree in Industrial Chemistry but now writes poetry and novels and produces graphic novels, film, and exhibitions of visual art. He has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Nzenze, directed th…
Decolonization Is Never Cheap”
September 01 2011 “Decolonization Is Never Cheap”: The Rwandan Photography of Paul Nzalamba Allen F. Roberts, Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts is an editor of African Arts. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Doran H. Ross, Doran H. Ross Doran H. Ross is an editor of African Arts. [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paul Nzalamba Paul Nzalamb…
Recolonization of an African Visual Economy
The Book of “The Awakened Ones” of Cyakànyì
December 01 2010 The Book of “The Awakened Ones” of Cyakànyì Clémentine M. Faïk-Nzuji, Clémentine M. Faïk-Nzuji Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Clémentine M. Faïk-Nzuji is Emerita Professor of African Linguistics, Literatures, Cultures, and Arts at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, where she continues to direct the International Center for African Languages and Trad…
Guro Masked Performers
June 01 2009 Guro Masked Performers: Sculpted Bodies Serving Spirits and People Anne-Marie Bouttiaux, Anne-Marie Bouttiaux Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Anne-Marie Bouttiaux is head of works and chief curator of the Ethnography Division of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. An anthropologist and art historian, she has conducted field research in West Afr…
Image Ethics” in and about Africa
The thoughts to follow are inspired by a num ber of recent works in art history and culture, most of which concern parts of world other than The excellent essays of Photography's Other Histories (2003) edited by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peter son and chapters of Raw Histories: Photo graphs, Anthropology and Museums (2001) by Elizabeth Edwards are particular sources for my ruminations. How might insights of writers working in Aboriginal Aust…
Flickering images, floating signifiers
A Sufi movement of Senegal known as the Mouride Way possesses a vibrant visual culture made manifest in all manner of popular, devotional, and healing arts. Portraits of Sheikh Amadou Bamba (1853–1927), the saint around whose writings and life lessons the Mouride movement has been created, appear in every imaginable medium, but all are derived from the only known photograph of Bamba, taken by French colonial authorities in 1913. In 2003, lenticul…
Blazing the Trail
Explorations in African Systems of Thought
Entrepreneurs and Parasites
A Saint in the City
Memory
The Luba are one of the oldest recorded tribes in equatorial Africa. A Bantu-speaking people, they had already expanded their empire throughout central Africa by the 9th century AD. Much of this progress was probably due to their advanced skills in metalwork. The Luba had a wide network of kings governed by a central ruler who succeeded through the mother's line. Much more is known about the Luba than many of the other tribes on the African conti…
In and out of Focus
Fishers of Men
Opening ParagraphIn the late nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries among Tabwa southwest of Lake Tanganyika (now Zaire) sought to create a cohesive community of African Christians. The priests prohibited communal practice of Tabwa religion in the vicinity of their churches (established at points of densest population) and appropriated important means of food production like river-fishing grounds, for their own exploitation or to reward those …
Moments of Freedom
Mystical Graffiti and the Refabulation of Dakar
Since late 2003 or early 2004, Pape Diop has been adorning the walls of inner-city Dakar with graffiti depicting Cheikh Amadou Bamba (1853–1927), the Senegalese holy man whose writings and life lessons are central to the Sufi movement known as the Mouride Way. What differentiates Diop's works from those of Dakar's other street artists is the layering of his portraits: he paints image upon image. In doing so, he produces astonishing effects, among…
L'aura d'Amadou Bamba. Photographie et fabulation dans le Sénégal urbain
L'aura d'Amadou Bamba. Photographie et fabulation dans le Sénégal urbain Depuis 1988, le Sénégal urbain a vu proliférer les arts populaires. Un sujet se détache en nombre et en importance : Amadou Bamba (1853-1927), saint soufi du Sénégal autour de qui a été créée la Voie mouride. Toutes les images de Bamba renvoient à une seule photographie prise vers 1913, photographie dont les particularités offrent une suite sans fin d'occasions de reconnaîtr…
Authenticity' and Ritual Gone Awry in Mobutu's Zaire
L'A. presente un cas de mort attribue a la sorcellerie dans le village de Lubanda (Zaire), ou un homme a ete tue par les fils de sa propre victime. L'accusation de sorcellerie qui a suivit met en evidence la fragilite de la societe locale. A travers cet exemple, est souligner la necessite d'aller au-dela des contextes politiques locaux et de prendre en compte des evenements regionaux, nationaux pour comprendre la maniere dont les populations gere…
Guro Masked Performers
June 01 2009 Guro Masked Performers: Sculpted Bodies Serving Spirits and People Anne-Marie Bouttiaux, Anne-Marie Bouttiaux Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Anne-Marie Bouttiaux is head of works and chief curator of the Ethnography Division of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. An anthropologist and art historian, she has conducted field research in West Afr…
The Power of Animals, An Ethnography
Is Repatriation Inevitable
Debates about repatriation of human remains and significant cultural materials to their communities of origin, including objects deemed “art” following culturally determined assessments, have raged for many years. One need only consider how the “madness” of returning the famed fifth-century bce “Elgin Marbles,” as they are known in the UK after the man who purloined them from the Acropolis in the early nineteenth century, is debated as an issue o…
Recolonization of an African Visual Economy
Memory
Chez les Luba du Sud-Est du Zaire, la memoire (dont l'etymologie est etudiee) n'est pas passive. La representation visuelle, dont la principale est le « lukasa » (objet de bois), est un des moyens pour faire les histoires de la royaute, des relations politiques mais aussi de la famille. Dans la production de cette memoire, les lieux et le corps (esprit) ont egalement leur importance. Le processus memotechnique est performatif et le recit historiq…
Perfect» lions, «perfect» leaders
In studying lion symbolism among the Tabwa (southeastern Zaïre), the author demonstrates the fact that, although this symbolism may have been diffused in Africa from Europe in the Paleolithic age (suggestion of Frobenius), metaphors or other items of culture are adopted only if they allow people to understand and explain some aspects of their particular existence. For the Tabwa, the moon, lions and chiefs are metaphorically linked. There are four…
Kisangani
March 01 2013 Kisangani: A Chronicle of Return Virginie Dupray, Virginie Dupray Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Allen F. Roberts Allen F. Roberts Virginie Dupray has been managing director of Studios Kabako since 2003. Trained in European Economy (HEC–Paris and the University of Cologne) and Art History, she has directed communications and public relations for the French Institute of the United Kingdom in London…
African Ceremonies
Objects
Animals in African Art
Animal images are so common in African art, and their meanings and purposes assumed to be so obvious, that they are taken for granted. Indeed, Animals in African Art is the first major book wholly dedicated to the subject. Once the animals in African art are looked at more closely, important questions arise. Why is it that from the astounding diversity of life-forms in Africa, so very few animals are chosen as subjects of visual and performative …
Chance Encounters, Ironic Collage
Through the Bamboo Thicket
In processual microcosm of performance (Turner 1985:183), elements of one's chaotic, ineffable, and/or inchoate experience are found to be significant.1 Bringing about such a recognition is the of ritual. Through divination and related rituals people remember, revise, rearrange, and reconstitute elements of to understand and cope with present difficulties, so that a better future can be expected. History is not absolute. Knowledge is not immutabl…
Duality in Tabwa Art
Icons from the end of days
Remarkable street paintings in a neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal, depict half the countenance of an African holy man named Seydina Issa and half that of Jesus Christ, the images joined by an interface of golden blessing. Another street painting based upon a photograph of Seydina Issa depicts him with studio lights reflecting from his forehead in the form of a brilliant cross. The man is a saint (wali Allah, ‘Companion of God’) of Senegal's smalles…
African Religions
Journal Article AFRICAN RELIGIONS Get access Kpele Lala. Ga Religious Songs and Symbols. By MARION KILSON. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971 xxi+313 pages+illustrations and tables. $7.50. L.C. No. 79-135188. ALLEN F. ROBERTS ALLEN F. ROBERTS University of Chicago Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLI, Issue 3, September 1973, Pages 477-a–477, https:…
Explorations in African Systems of Thought
Comets importing change of Times and States
The study of spectacular 19th-century comets, as perceived by the Tabwa of Zaire, provides an opportunity to consider the process of symbolization. Firsthand written accounts discovered in archives are complemented by present-day informants' exegeses. The comet was felt to augur-perhaps to cause-great misfortune. Its symbolism is one of transition and transformation; the prosopopoeic comet was made the subject of allegory, a story form in which m…
Perfect» lions, «perfect» leaders
In studying lion symbolism among the Tabwa (southeastern Zaïre), the author demonstrates the fact that, although this symbolism may have been diffused in Africa from Europe in the Paleolithic age (suggestion of Frobenius), metaphors or other items of culture are adopted only if they allow people to understand and explain some aspects of their particular existence. For the Tabwa, the moon, lions and chiefs are metaphorically linked. There are four…
Interlacustrine Myths and History
African Religious Groups and Beliefs
Peer Reviewed
Fishers of Men
Opening ParagraphIn the late nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries among Tabwa southwest of Lake Tanganyika (now Zaire) sought to create a cohesive community of African Christians. The priests prohibited communal practice of Tabwa religion in the vicinity of their churches (established at points of densest population) and appropriated important means of food production like river-fishing grounds, for their own exploitation or to reward those …
Symbolic Structures
Peer Reviewed
Duality in Tabwa Art
The Rising of a New Moon
Plea for Candor
‘Insidious Conquests’
While the First World War raged in Europe, less sanguinary combat was waged in the heart of Africa. The battles of Lake Tanganyika may have been of relatively little international consequence; the salvos traded between tiny Belgian batteries dug in before remote missionary outposts and steam-powered German launches sporting a gun or two may have been futile; yet the war did prove unsettling to the African populace. As people from distinct worlds …
Le Quotidien, Entre la Memoire et l'Imaginaire
Of Dogon Crooks and Thieves
Through the Bamboo Thicket
In processual microcosm of performance (Turner 1985:183), elements of one's chaotic, ineffable, and/or inchoate experience are found to be significant.1 Bringing about such a recognition is the of ritual. Through divination and related rituals people remember, revise, rearrange, and reconstitute elements of to understand and cope with present difficulties, so that a better future can be expected. History is not absolute. Knowledge is not immutabl…
Entrepreneurs and Parasites
Religion and Society in Central Africa
"On the Review of "TDR, The Drama Review
Tabwa Masks
Analyse semiologique et iconographique des masques de bois, masques-heaume, parures de danse, masques zoomorphes, supports des mythes, d'elements magiques, mediateurs rituels (Zaire, Zambie). Influences luba
Maniema
Allegorical Speculation in an Oral Society
Chance Encounters, Ironic Collage
Mangbetu
Blazing the Trail
General/Theoretical Anthropology
Art (57 obras) · History (41 obras) · African history and culture studies (39 obras) · Sociology (33 obras) · Visual arts (28 obras) · Political science (21 obras) · Art history (20 obras) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (20 obras) · Computer Science (19 obras) · African history and culture analysis (18 obras)