EDITORIAL NOTES Paul Carter Harrison INTRODUCTION Theophus "Thee" Smith...THE GLOBALIZATION OF AFRICANA AESTHETICS PART I: ASHE' CONCEPTUAL FRAME FRONTSIEPIECE: Wangechi Mutu, Riding Death in my Sleep Ch 1. Pellom McDaniels....LIKE ECHOS ACROSS THE CONTINUUM: WANGECHI MUTU’S NEW HORIZONS IN AFRO-COSMOLOGY Ch 2. Clyde Taylor…SALT PEANUTS: SOUND AND SENSE IN AFRICAN/AMERCAN ORAL/MUSICAL CREATIVY Ch 3. Rowland Abiodun.........ASHE': THE EMPOWERED WORD MUST COME TO PASS Ch 4. Maria E. Hamilton Abegunde...SEEING AS A RITUAL FOR A GOOD DEATH: THE SPIRITUAL CONSTRUCTION OF ALAIN GOMIS’ FILM, TEY PART II: ASHE' CULTURAL FRAME FRONTSIEPIECE: Eric Waters, Medicine Man Ch 5. Michael D. Harris...........ERIC WATERS: CAPTURING THE CULTURE IN PHOTOS Ch 6. Michael McMillan...............DUB IN THE FRONT ROOM: MIGRANT AESTHETICS OF THE SACRED AND SECULAR Ch 7. Oliver Lee Jackson......SENSIBILITY AND THE AFRICAN CONTINUUM Ch 8. Marta Moreno Vega..........I WILL NOT BE ERASED PART III: ASHE' AND ARTS DISCIPLINES FRONTIESPIECE: Oliver Lee Jackson, UNTITLED (5.21.95) Ch 9. Paul Carter Harrison.....AESTHETICS OF BEAUTY: IN AN AFRICANA MODE Ch 10. Michael D. Harris..........UNDONE: BOTTLES, TREES, CHARMS, & FLASHING SPIRITS Ch 11. Gregory Tate...........BEBOP, HIP HOP AND CONDUCTIVITY GLOSSARY Arturo Lindsay........ASHE AT THE CROSSROADS: Aesthetic Criteria, Glossary, Terms, and Bibliography BIOGRAPHIES Editors Michael D. Harris is an Associate Professor Emeritus of African American Studies at Emory University; he holds a BA in Education, BGSU; MFA in Painting, Howard University; MA in African American Studies, Yale, MA, MPhil, and Ph.D. in History of Art from Yale University. He taught African American Art History and Yoruba Art and Culture. Dr. Harris was named to the list of curators and scholars, "25 Who Made a Difference," in the fall 2001 issue of International Review of African American Art. The list includes David Driskell, James Porter, Samella Lewis, Richard Powell, and Jeff Donaldson, among others. Currently Prof. Harris has a book-length manuscript, Sanctuary: Conjuring an Africana Art Aesthetic in production at Duke University Press. Also, he has written contributions for the African Art textbook, A History of Art in Africa (2000, 2007), and was co-author of the important book, Astonishment and Power (1993), which accompanied the exhibition of the same name at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. His recent book, Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation, won two national awards. In addition to doing curatorial work at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Art and Culture in Charlotte, Prof. Harris worked as a curatorial consultant for five years at the High Museum in Atlanta, and has worked independently as a curator for the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service, and the High Museum. Additionally, Prof. Harris is a practicing artist and a long-time member of the artist collective, AfriCOBRA He has exhibited his work across the United States, in Europe, and in the Caribbean and is represented in many public and private collections. He serves on the National Board of the National Conference of Artists, on the Editorial Board of the International Review of African American Art based at Hampton University, and has been a board member for ACASA (Arts Council for the African Studies Association). Paul Carter Harrison is an award-winning playwright/director/theorist who has spent the last 50 years of his prodigious career as artist and scholar pursuing ritual expression in the African Diaspora. Exemplary of the ritual stylization of text and music was the Negro Ensemble Company production of one of his most significant works for stage, The Great Macdaddy garnered an Obie Award in the early Seventies. Also, in the same period, became the author The Drama Of Nommo, a collection of essays that has had a seminal influence in the exploration of ritual stylization for contemporary playwrights and directors in Black Theatre, as well as the volume of defining texts co-edited with playwright Gus Edwards and Producer/Scholar Victor, a volume of collected essays, Black Theatre: Ritual Performance In The African Diaspora that has amplified the aesthetics of Black Theatre practice. The recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for American Playwriting, a National Endowment of the Arts Playwrights Fellowship, and two Meet-the-Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissions for the development of his two operettas, Goree Crossing and Doxology Opera: The Doxy Canticles, which was reimagined as a Dance Theatre piece, Doxy Ringshout. He is served for 5 years as a Visiting Artist/Scholar at Emory University, where he guided a research project on Critical Vocabulary for African Diasporic Expressivity which culminated in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Faculty Institute and led to this anthology volume. Pellom McDaniels III Prior to becoming a highly esteemed scholar, McDaniels had been a reliable force as a Defensive Lineman in the National Football League (NFL). Following a successful career (1991-98) a trait of relentless pursuit he exhibited in his scholarship, McDaniels retired from the NFL and began his pursuit of a graduate degree at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia where he received both a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in American Studies. He then went on to become an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. He then returned to Emory where he became an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and faculty curator of the African American collection in the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. In 2014, he was instrumental in writing and winning an NEH (National Endowment of the Humanities) grant to support a 3 week Summer Institute at Emory campus for College and University Teachers under the rubric of Black Aesthetics and African Centered Expressions: Sacred Systems in the Nexus between Cultural Studies, Religion, and Philosophy, and served as the bulwark co-chairman along with Paul Carter Harrison. He soon after became a Professor and Curator of African American Collections at Emory University’s Rose Library. In 2015, McDaniels became one of the six recipients of the 2015 Silver Anniversary Awards, presented annually by the NCAA to outstanding former student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of the end of their college sports careers. The award is based on both athletic and professional success. An accomplished poet and essayist, his publications included: "The Prince of Jockeys: The Life of Isaac Burns Murphy" (2013); So, You Want to be Pro (2000), My Own Harlem (1998); "We're American Too: The Negro Leagues and the Philosophy of Resistance" in Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box (2004); reviews in Hampton University's International Review of African American Art related to the work of artists Kadir Nelson and Hale Woodruff. McDaniels, who passed suddenly in 2020, was an adherent of the Bahá'í Faith, utilizing its teachings and principles to perform acts of service, promote education and value for culture, and engage in community-outreach endeavors. Contributors Maria Hamilton Abegunde is a Cave Canem, Sacatar, and Ragdale fellow. She is the founding director of The Graduate Mentoring Center and a visiting faculty member in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Excerpts of The Ariran’s Last Life, her ancestral memory work about the Middle Passage, have been published in Best African American Fiction, The Kenyon Review, and Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue. Her work has also been published in The Massachusetts Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Jane’s Stories, Rhino, and COGzine. Rowland
