Klaas van Walraven, ed. The Individual in African History. The Importance of Biography in African Historical Studies. Leiden and Boston: Brill,2020. xii + 304 pp. Maps. Figures. Photographs. Notes. References. Index. $73.00. Paper. ISBN: 978-9004407817.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Heather Hughes
Keyword(s):  
African History ◽  
The Individual

Conversion and the Idea of the Secret

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-186
Author(s):  
Gauri Viswanathan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
African History ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Dynamic View ◽  
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ◽  
The Individual

Gauri Viswanathan, “Conversion and the Idea of the Secret” (pp. 161–186) Obsessed with the notion of the secret in his writings on religion, Jacques Derrida uncannily evokes a predecessor with whom he has rarely, if at all, been compared—the Russian occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. This essay argues that Blavatsky’s occult writings set the stage for the kinds of speculations on crypto-conversion, conscience, and responsibility that subsequently engaged Derrida. Like Blavatsky, Derrida saw conversion not as change but as retaining whatever it displaces in the form of a secret, persisting as an enduring reminder of supplanted religious beliefs. While Derrida was more interested in conversion as a form of repression that mutually constitutes the old and the new, Blavatsky held a broader and more dynamic view of conversion-as-repression: in describing Christianity’s battle against the heterogeneous belief-systems it eventually supplanted, she sought to illuminate conversion as a larger process well beyond the individual and involving religious expansion and consolidation. The essay culminates in a close reading of an occult text, W. B. Yeats’s “The Manuscript of ‘Leo Africanus,’” that exemplifies the problematics of crypto-conversion as delineated by Blavatsky and Derrida in their respective ways. “Leo Africanus” stages Yeats’s encounter with a dead spirit alternatively grasped as his anti-self and historical conscience. A breakthrough in understanding allows Yeats to acknowledge an occluded history—his as much as that of his deceased interlocutor—that can only be told in the terms of crypto-conversion, in this instance of a sixteenth-century African slave forcibly converted to Christianity and turned into a native informant of African history and geography.

A Personal Journey into Custom, Identity, Power, and Politics: Researching and Writing the Life and Times of Buganda's Queen Mother Irene Drusilla Namaganda (1896–1957)

1996 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nakanyike B. Musisi
Keyword(s):  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Personal Journey ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Queen Mother

Biography is on its way to enjoying immense popularity in the teaching of African history. A number of reasons account for this optimism. First is the current impetus from the postmodernist challenge of universalist and essentialist categories—with their emphasis on the individual and their exhaustive exposition of power and language. Second is the existence of massive research projects presently underway, together with the success of already published monographs. And lastly is the popularity and success that African novels have enjoyed in the teaching field of African studies and African history in particular. All three combined make us more sanguine.The popularity of African novels lies in their ability to convey to the reader how a society might have functioned with or without a state. Since most often a novelist tries to recreate a historical moment, a novel becomes a pedagogical tool of what Klein has called a “reasonable representation of what society may have been like.” In the most popularly utilized novels, an individual is cast at the center of the unfolding story. Most often, the African novel concerns itself with the impact of colonialism and the transition from traditional to contemporary African realities. This is frequently done with the aim of conveying to the reader the processes of adjustment and the pros and cons of this adjustment.As a must, there is a stern, often cold, and not very understanding colonial agent or agents. He is not alone, but is paired with a sympathetic and liberal missionary (although generally one who imparts conservative Victorian values).

The Study of African History

1950 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 49-69
Author(s):  
J. W. Blake
Keyword(s):  
West Coast ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
African History ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Regional Histories

In speaking this afternoon on the study of African history, I am very conscious that the choice of subject is ambitious. Many aspects of African history are more and more attracting the close attention of scholars, and I wish to apply to the history of the African continent as a whole the experience gained by the study of some aspects of the history of one of the regions, the West Coast. For I have learned that there are dangers no less than securities in the pursuit in isolation of selected regional or topical studies. Authoritative regional histories—histories of the individual colonies of the European states in Africa—are badly needed. But it seems to me that such tasks of local specialized investigation should not be allowed, as they proceed, to throw out of focus the whole picture of African history. So I would respectfully suggest that a case exists for a broader and more integrated approach to the study of African history and for an interpretation of African events from the point of view not merely of the European but also of the Arab, the Indian, and above all the Bantu and the Negro. My appeal is for the study of African history mainly through African eyes and for its own sake.

MUSLIM HISTORIES, AFRICAN SOCIETIES: THE VENTURE OF ISLAMIC STUDIES IN AFRICA Muslim Societies in African History. By DAVID ROBINSON. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xx+220. £35/$55 (ISBN 0-521-82627-6); £14.99/$19, paperback (ISBN 0-521-53366-X). The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by NEHEMIA LEVTZION and RANDALL L. POUWELS. Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2000. Pp. xii+591. $75 (ISBN 0-8214-1296-5); $26.95, paperback (ISBN 0-8214-1297-3).

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEAN HANRETTA
Keyword(s):  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Ohio University ◽  
African History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Comprehensive Reference

WITH the publication of these two volumes, the historical study of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa has reached its maturity. Drawing on five decades of scholarship since the professionalization of African history, and the long traditions of Islamic and African studies before that, these works – one the first truly usable textbook survey of the field, the other the first comprehensive reference – are both a successful culmination of what has gone before and guides to the paths ahead. In some cases the authors' and editors' careers are virtually synonymous with the field as a whole, as with the late Nehemia Levtzion, and all are among the acknowledged authorities on their specialties. David Robinson, author of Muslim Societies in African History, is one of the few who have established themselves as authorities on both the precolonial and colonial periods, and his work is central to active debates in each subfield. The individual and collective stature of Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels, editors of The History of Islam in Africa, along with that of the twenty-two other contributors, makes the authority of the volume unprecedented.

The Ultrastructure of Monkey Gingival Epithelium

1967 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
C.N. Sun
Keyword(s):  
Epithelial Cells ◽  
Macaca Nemestrina ◽  
Stratum Granulosum ◽  
Solution Ph ◽  
Gingival Epithelial Cells ◽  
Stratum Spinosum ◽  
Cell Layers ◽  
Gingival Epithelium ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Thickness

The present study demonstrates the ultrastructure of the gingival epithelium of the pig tail monkey (Macaca nemestrina). Specimens were taken from lingual and facial gingival surfaces and fixed in Dalton's chrome osmium solution (pH 7.6) for 1 hr, dehydrated, and then embedded in Epon 812.Tonofibrils are variable in number and structure according to the different region or location of the gingival epithelial cells, the main orientation of which is parallel to the long axis of the cells. The cytoplasm of the basal epithelial cells contains a great number of tonofilaments and numerous mitochondria. The basement membrane is 300 to 400 A thick. In the cells of stratum spinosum, the tonofibrils are densely packed and increased in number (fig. 1 and 3). They seem to take on a somewhat concentric arrangement around the nucleus. The filaments may occur scattered as thin fibrils in the cytoplasm or they may be arranged in bundles of different thickness. The filaments have a diameter about 50 A. In the stratum granulosum, the cells gradually become flatted, the tonofibrils are usually thin, and the individual tonofilaments are clearly distinguishable (fig. 2). The mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum are seldom seen in these superficial cell layers.

A Study of the Ultrastructure of Visual Cell Outer Segment Membranes, Using a Water-Miscible Embedding Medium and Differential Staining

1972 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 50-51
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Godfrey
Keyword(s):  
Outer Segment ◽  
Protein Denaturation ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Differential Staining ◽  
Visual Cell ◽  
Lead Citrate ◽  
Chick Retina ◽  
Dark Staining ◽  
Embedding Medium ◽  
The Individual

Aldehyde-fixed chick retina was embedded in a water-containing resin of glutaraldehyde and urea, without dehydration. The loss of lipids and other soluble tissue components, which is severe in routine methods involving dehydration, was thereby minimized. Osmium tetroxide post-fixation was not used, lessening the amount of protein denaturation which occurred. Ultrathin sections were stained with 1, uranyl acetate and lead citrate, 2, silicotungstic acid, or 3, osmium vapor, prior to electron microscope examination of visual cell outer segment ultrastructure, at magnifications up to 800,000.Sections stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate (Fig. 1) showed that the individual disc membranes consisted of a central lipid core about 78Å thick in which dark-staining 40Å masses appeared to be embedded from either side.

The Red Neuronal Pigment in the Nervous System of the Mussel, Mytilus Edulis: Localization and Its Effect on Lateral Ciliary Activity with Spectral and Analytical Changes

1981 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 494-495
Author(s):  
Anthony A. Paparo ◽  
Judith A. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Mytilus Edulis ◽  
Neuronal Cell ◽  
Ciliary Activity ◽  
Neuronal Cell Bodies ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
Intracellular Organelles ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Cryostat Sections

The purpose of this study was to localize the red neuronal pigment in Mytilus edulis and examine its role in the control of lateral ciliary activity in the gill. The visceral ganglia (Vg) in the central nervous system show an over al red pigmentation. Most red pigments examined in squash preps and cryostat sec tions were localized in the neuronal cell bodies and proximal axon regions. Unstained cryostat sections showed highly localized patches of this pigment scattered throughout the cells in the form of dense granular masses about 5-7 um in diameter, with the individual granules ranging from 0.6-1.3 um in diame ter. Tissue stained with Gomori's method for Fe showed bright blue granular masses of about the same size and structure as previously seen in unstained cryostat sections.Thick section microanalysis (Fig.l) confirmed both the localization and presence of Fe in the nerve cell. These nerve cells of the Vg share with other pigmented photosensitive cells the common cytostructural feature of localization of absorbing molecules in intracellular organelles where they are tightly ordered in fine substructures.

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