Challenging the Black Atlantic: The New World Novels of Zapata Olivella and Gonçalves by John T. Maddox IV

AbstractDuring the early 1970s the American songwriter, musician and producer Van Dyke Parks completed work on a series of albums exploring the musical contours of the circum-Caribbean region and, through them, broader patterns and issues in twentieth-century US–Caribbean relations. Focusing on the connections between the United States and the (former) British colony of Trinidad and Tobago as articulated via the latter's calypso and steel band traditions, these recordings (two solo albums and two productions) not only explore the grammar, vocabulary and subject matter of a new world music before the phrase ‘world music’ was conceived; they also invite a range of scholarly interpretations. Drawing on a selection of theoretical concepts – notably cultural imperialism, the Black Atlantic, minstrelsy, and world music itself – this article offers a set of formalist and contextualist readings intended to rehearse Parks' Caribbean work as both a case study in (and a challenge to aspects of) the inter-disciplinary analysis of popular music.

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AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA: NEW DIRECTIONS OF STUDY Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil. Edited by KRISTIN MANN and EDNA G. BAY. London: Frank Cass, 2001. Pp. 160. $64.50 (ISBN 0-7146-5129-X); $26.50, paperback (ISBN 0-7146-8158-X). The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities. Edited by ISIDORE OKPEWHO, CAROLE BOYCE DAVIES and ALI A. MAZRUI. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. xxviii+566. $59.95 (ISBN 0-253-33425-X); $22.95, paperback (ISBN 0-253-21494-7).

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853703008569 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 44 (3) ◽

pp. 487-506 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

PATRICK MANNING

Keyword(s):

African Diaspora ◽

New World ◽

Female Circumcision ◽

Alice Walker ◽

Religious Practice ◽

Black Atlantic ◽

Social Practices ◽

Indiana University ◽

Global Context ◽

New Directions

RECENT studies addressing the ‘African diaspora’ have sought to provide global context for the experience of people of African descent. The two books under review – each a major contribution to studies of the African diaspora – provide an opportunity to take stock of the emerging genre of historical and cultural studies of which they are a part. The perspective of the African diaspora has the advantage of locating movements and connections of Africans around the world, and in so doing has the power to inform and sometimes surprise. From such a perspective, for instance, Alberto da Costa e Silva notes that during the 1860s a French bookseller in Rio de Janeiro sold a hundred copies of the Qur'an each year, mainly as clandestine sales to slaves and ex-slaves. This evidence confirms the continuing significance of Islam in Brazil, and raises the possibility that the religious practice was sustained through continuing contacts with West Africa. Over a century later, novelist Alice Walker launched a headline-grabbing campaign against female circumcision in Africa. As Joseph McLaren shows, Walker's campaign reflected not the shock of an African-American's initial encounter with the complex social practices of the African continent, but her considered judgment after decades of visits to East Africa. These examples suggest the range and interest of linkages across wide distances that may be elicited through studies of the African diaspora. They reflect the contributions of an academic enterprise that is apparently settling into a permanent place on the scholarly and curricular scene.

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