Uniquely African?


Book Description

Concerning themselves with the problematic nature of African Christian identity, the contributors to this book adopt various cultural, historical, national and educational perspectives in order to reflect on the problem of African identities in a world dominated by Western ideological and religious systems.




Gbagba


Book Description

Sundaymah and Sundaygar are two siblings who live in Grand Bassa County in Liberia. On the way to visit their Auntie Mardie's house in Monrovia, they encounter various characters in the big city and have an experience that introduces them to a very important word.




Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa


Book Description

Based on rich oral histories, this is an engaging study of citizenship construction and practice in Liberia, Africa's first black republic.




African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition


Book Description

Using classic texts in African philosophy, Bruce B. Janz applies the strand of cognitive science known as enactivism to realise new connections and intersections between both fields. The idea that cognition is embodied and embedded in a social world neatly maps onto specifically African epistemologies to outline a new direction of study on what philosophy is. By working through a rich range of texts and thinkers, Janz provides a fruitful new interpretation of African philosophy and provides close readings of seminal and sidelined thinkers to provide an invaluable resource for students and scholars. Janz's study takes in the creative humanism of Sylvia Wynter, Placide Tempels's Bantu Philosophy, Mbiti's theory of time, Oruka's last work on sage philosophy, Mogobe Ramose's own version of Ubuntu, Sophie Oluwole's active literature of philosophy, Achille Mbembe's excoriating attack on the effects of colonialism on life in Africa, and Suzanne Césaire writings on négritude. This book reorients African philosophy towards an active and creative future informed by enactivist thinking.




Salvation in African Christianity


Book Description

“What must I do to be saved?” That question, raised in the book of Acts by the Philippian jailer, is a question for the ages. Yet what, even, does it mean to be saved? Is salvation for this life or the next? Is it purely spiritual or does it have physical and material implications? Can salvation be lost? Do we determine who will be saved or does God? What role does Christ play in salvation? Such are the seemingly unending questions soteriology strives to answer. In this eighth volume from the Africa Society of Evangelical Theology, African theologians articulate their understanding of salvation – and its widespread implications for life and practice – in conversation with Scripture and the rich diversity of an African cultural context. Salvation is examined from historical, philosophical, and theological lenses, and scholars address topics as wide-ranging as conversion, ethnicity, fertility, poverty, prosperity, the Trinity, exclusivism, African Pentecostalism, rural community, eschatology, wholeness, and atonement. It is a powerful exploration of the holistic nature of salvation as articulated in Scripture and understood by the African church.




Handbook of African Philosophy


Book Description

This Handbook provides in one volume rich, comprehensive and rigorous coverage of specific subject areas and thematic concerns in the ever-evolving academic discipline of African philosophy. This Handbook is unique in its focus on central and emerging areas within African philosophy such as Afro-communitarian philosophy, ethics, epistemology, social and political philosophy, existentialism, philosophy of religion, gender philosophy, philosophy of education, phenomenology, transhumanism, African philosophy futures, and philosophy of the non-human. The thirty-two chapters in this Handbook explore the rich textual and non-textual forms of philosophical knowledge in Africa and adequately represent the broad and diverse scope of African philosophy, showing the richness and depth of the philosophical tradition. This reference work is indispensable to students and researchers in African philosophy, comparative philosophy and world philosophies.




Africa, Amazing Africa: Country by Country


Book Description

Discover the exhilarating diversity of the African continent in storyteller Atinuke’s kaleidoscopic nonfiction guide to the people, flora, and fauna of all fifty-five countries. A Nigerian storyteller explores the continent of Africa country by country: its geography, peoples, animals, history, resources, and cultural diversity. The book is divided into five distinct sections—South, East, West, Central, and North—and each country is showcased on its own bright, energetic page brimming with friendly facts on science, industry, food, sports, music, wildlife, landscape features, even snippets of local languages. The richest king, the tallest sand dunes, and the planet’s largest waterfall all make appearances along with drummers, cocoa growers, inventors, balancing stones, salt lakes, high-tech cities, and nomads who use GPS! Atinuke’s lively and comprehensive introduction to all fifty-five African countries—a celebration scaled to dazzle and delight even very young readers—evokes the continent’s unique blend of modern and traditional. Complete with colorful maps, an index, and richly patterned and textured illustrations by debut children’s book artist Mouni Feddag, Africa, Amazing Africa is both a beautiful gift book and an essential classroom and social studies resource.




African Environmental Ethics


Book Description

This book focuses on under-explored and often neglected issues in contemporary African environmental philosophy and ethics. Critical issues such as the moral status of nature, African conceptions of animal moral status and rights, African conceptions of environmental justice, African relational Environmentalism, ubuntu, African theocentric and teleological environmentalism are addressed in this book. It is unique in so far as it goes beyond the generalized focus on African metaphysics and African ethics by exploring how these views might be understood differently in order to conceptualize African environmental ethics. Against the background where environmental problems such as pollution, climate change, extinction of flora and fauna, and global warming are plain to see, it becomes useful to examine how African conceptions of environmental ethics could be understood in order to confront some of these problems facing the whole world. This book will be of value to undergraduate students, graduate students and academics working in the area of African Philosophy, African Environmental Ethics and Global Ethics in general.




African American Culture


Book Description

Covering everything from sports to art, religion, music, and entrepreneurship, this book documents the vast array of African American cultural expressions and discusses their impact on the culture of the United States. According to the latest census data, less than 13 percent of the U.S. population identifies as African American; African Americans are still very much a minority group. Yet African American cultural expression and strong influences from African American culture are common across mainstream American culture—in music, the arts, and entertainment; in education and religion; in sports; and in politics and business. African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs covers virtually every aspect of African American cultural expression, addressing subject matter that ranges from how African culture was preserved during slavery hundreds of years ago to the richness and complexity of African American culture in the post-Obama era. The most comprehensive reference work on African American culture to date, the multivolume set covers such topics as black contributions to literature and the arts, music and entertainment, religion, and professional sports. It also provides coverage of less-commonly addressed subjects, such as African American fashion practices and beauty culture, the development of jazz music across different eras, and African American business.




Christian Reflection in Africa


Book Description

This reference collection presents academic reviews of more than twelve-hundred contemporary Africa-related publications relevant for informed Christian reflection in and about Africa. The collection is based on the review journal BookNotes for Africa, a specialist resource dedicated to bringing to notice such publications, and furnishing them with a one-paragraph description and evaluation. Now assembled here for the first time is the entire collection of reviews through the first thirty issues of the journal’s history. The core intention, both of the journal and of this compilation, is to encourage and to facilitate informed Christian reflection and engagement in Africa, through a thoughtful encounter with the published intellectual life of the continent. Reviews have been provided by a team of more than one hundred contributors drawn from throughout Africa and overseas. The books and other media selected for review represent a broad cross-section of interests and issues, of personalities and interpretations, including the secular as well as the religious. The collection will be of special interest to academic scholars, theological educators, libraries, ministry leaders, and specialist researchers in Africa and throughout the world, but will also engage any reader looking for a convenient resource relating to modern Africa and Christian presence there.