Prompt for Nov.4: Contemporary African and Diaspora Arts

For this week, make sure you consider the assigned readings by Sidney Kasfir, Olu Oguibe, and Yinka Shonibare. Use the quotes and questions discussed in class Thursday to build your blog response. What issues seem to concern many contemporary artists of African descent? You may also wish to present an example of a contemporary artist and use it to help explain how a particular issue is dealt with by the artist. How does the artist from your example use or deny his/her heritage? How do they confront assumptions and projections?

Prompt for October 28

1.       Explain how the “other” is constructed in the Mami Wata cult or by the Kongo or Sapi. Provide a specific example where visual culture is used in this construction.

2.       What do the two essays have in common? What strategies for interculturation or encountering difference seem to be shared by African peoples from each time period considered by the authors, respectively? In other words, how do both essays explain African receptivity to difference/new things? Provide specific examples where appropriate.

Comments on Haitian art blogs

Generally, I was glad to see so many thoughtful posts. It's always rewarding as a teacher to see students reconsider prior beliefs and conceptions of what they thought they knew after processing new information. I was also impressed last week with more students providing each other with helpfully critical comments on the blog posts. Keep that up!

A lot of you mentioned you got a lot out of "Black in Latin America." The other episodes on Brazil,  Mexico, and Cuba are available to watch free online here. Rod library also has it, and we will have it soon in the VRC.

Prompt for October 14

For your blogs this week, consider the following questions. Make sure to support your responses with specific examples.

•What are sources of vodou material culture and ritual? How is Haitian vodou religion and some African peoples’ beliefs similar?

•What meaningful connections can you make between what you know about African arts and what you read and saw about Haitian art?

•What meaningful connections/relationships can you make between the reading and the DVDs (Maya Deren’s “Divine Horsemen” and Henry Louis Gates' “Black in Latin America”?)

Prompt for October 7

Discuss how Yoruba visual culture communicates Yoruba spirituality. You can go in-depth with one or two examples, or write a comparative blog that is more all-encompassing. What seem to be major themes in Yoruba cosmology and spiritual belief?

General comments on comparisons

This week I noticed a lot of room for improvement.

It is also clear some folks are not reading the text--or at least, not reading it carefully. Misspellings, incorrect identification of peoples--these are all items that can be fact-checked with the resource you are meant to be reading for every class meeting.


Editorial mistakes were big this week too. You should write a draft and edit before you publish your post.


By this point in the semester, your blogs should be thoughtful, fact-checked, organized, and edited. There are three major writing skills everyone can improve upon:

Introductions
It would be good to start with an interesting introduction relating to theme and thesis rather than "I chose to compare". It is more efficient to begin with overarching comparative themes and support with formal analysis.

Theses

This is not a specific thesis: "Though both of these items are pencils, they represent very different things as well vary in their appearance." 

Neither is this: "When comparing the cheese to the cracker there are both similarities and differences between the two." We will practice making these specific in class.

Contestable information: Citations

There were quite a few instances where folks made statements that needed citations. If it is a claim that is contestable, it needs a citation. Ie: "It has been suggested that..." (Who suggested this idea?)