scholarly journals From Venus to “Black Venus”: Beyoncé’s I Have Three Hearts, Fashion, and the Limits of Visual Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
West African ◽  
First Century ◽  
Southern Gothic ◽  
Black Girl ◽  
Western Art

In 2016, Lemonade was lauded as “Black girl magic” for the ways the hour-long HBO special (and subsequent album) celebrated Black women and the Southern gothic tradition. It also was the first hint of Beyoncé paying homage to West African Yoruba traditions. At the 2017 Grammys, her performance was both an invocation of the sacred in Western art history and further homage to Yoruba. The performance opened with poetry by Warsan Shire, and snapshots of her daughter, Blue Ivy, but the highlight was Beyoncé’s gold gown, and crown, and gold accessories, all of which symbolized the African goddess Osun. Released just before her Grammys performance, the I Have Three Hearts photo-series circulated as pregnancy images (she was pregnant with twins), but it also functioned as a repository of Beyoncé’s invocation of the sacred in Western culture, as embodied in Venus, and the African goddess, often labelled as “Black Venus.” This article is an examination of three images in the I Have Three Hearts series, taken by Awol Erizku, and the series’ accompanying poetry by Shire. I argue that it raises important questions about the role of visual culture in fashion and popular culture. Is Beyoncé the Venus of the twenty-first century? Does this photographic series remap Western visual culture to reimagine Black womanhood in the discourse on sexuality? Or, it is an example of pastiche in postmodern culture wherein truncated information is authorized, making everyone an expert without the demand for historical context?

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald K. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
African American ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
College Presidents ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Black College ◽  
College President ◽  
American Black

The epilogue reveals the importance of placing African American black college presidents in an historical context. I re-emphasize the role of a black college president as more than an administrator of an institution but a race leader to his community. I also explain the creation of “moderation” in North Carolina and how Shepard help create this approach to the race issue prior to the legal battles surrounding school integration during the 1950s. Finally, I examine how Shepard’s legacy at North Carolina Central University has lasted well into the twenty-first century. This lasting impact is seen in the theory of the “Central Way” of doing things at the school today. This approach is largely based on the foundation of “moral education” that Shepard created in the early to mid-twentieth century.

Making Visible the Invisible: Corporeal Mime in the Twenty-First Century

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Baylis
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Training System ◽  
First Century ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Experimental Performance ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The World

Corporeal mime and the work of Etienne Decroux are well known in the world of physical theatre, remaining inspirational to those who have studied and explored this complex art form. In the following article Nicola Baylis examines the prevailing misunderstandings that surround corporeal mime, briefly addressing its historical context, and moving on to discuss contemporary applications of Decroux's training system. With the increasing advent of innovative theatre produced by a new wave of actors trained in corporeal mime, she focuses on the current work of artists in Naples, and concludes with reflections on corporeal mime's relevance to present-day experimental performance and on the potential future role of the form within modern theatre. Nicola Baylis is an actor, director, and teacher who has trained in corporeal mime and commedia dell'arte. Before moving to Naples, she worked as a Lecturer in Drama on degree programmes at Bournemouth and Poole College, in conjunction with Bournemouth University. She is currently working on an adaptation of Macbeth which will be performed in London in the autumn.

Habad, the Rebbe, and the Messiah in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 357-384
Author(s):  
Naftali Loewenthal
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Individual

We have looked at a number of aspects of the Habad-Lubavitch movement in their historical context: its relationship with general Jewish society, the theme of outreach, including beyond the Jewish community, rationalism, the role of the individual, contemplation, women, the messianic idea, and the fact that Rabbi Menachem Mendel passed away without a successor. This concluding chapter explores some further theological questions: What are the positions within Habad in relation to the teachings of the last Rebbe and his messianic thrust? What might the contemporary movement have to say for the future?

scholarly journals Building Faith: Ethiopian Art and Architecture during the Jesuit Interlude, 1557–1632

Aethiopica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Windmuller-Luna
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Cultural Accommodation ◽  
Ethiopian Orthodox ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Architectural Treatises

This dissertation examines the relationship between royally-sponsored Roman Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox art and architecture during the 1557 to 1632 Jesuit Ethiopian mission. The first part of the dissertation examines key religious and secular sites, demonstrating how these structures combined elements drawn from classicizing architectural treatises, the Portuguese estilo chão, and Ethiopian architecture. The second part of the project assesses the role of books, prints, and religious art as tools of conversion and as artistic models. In contrast to studies that posit that European visual culture supplanted the Ethiopian during the mission era, the dissertation argues that the period’s art and architecture demonstrates the Jesuit strategy of cultural accommodation, and that far from being apart from Ethiopian art history, it shares stylistic and iconographic hallmarks with the so-called “Gondärine style.” 

The Language of Ruins

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Rosenmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Close Encounter ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Shed Light

A colossal statue, originally built to honor an ancient pharaoh, still stands in Egyptian Thebes. Damaged by an earthquake, and re-identified as the Homeric hero Memnon, it was believed to “speak” regularly at daybreak. By the middle of the first century CE, the colossus had become a popular site for sacred tourism; visitors flocked to hear the miraculous sound, leaving behind over one hundred Greek and Latin inscriptions. These inscriptions are varied and diverse: brief acknowledgments of having heard Memnon’s voice; longer lists by Roman administrators including details of personal accomplishments; and elaborate elegiac poems by both amateurs and professionals. The inscribed names reveal the presence of emperors and soldiers, provincial governors and businessmen, elite women and military wives, and families with children. This study is the first complete assessment of all the inscriptions considered in their social, cultural, and historical context. The Memnon colossus functioned as a powerful site of engagement with the Greek past for a broad segment of society. The inscriptions shed light on attitudes toward sacred tourism, the role of Egypt in the Greco-Roman imagination, and Homer’s cultural legacy in the imperial era. Visitors sought a “close encounter” with this ghost from the Homeric past anchored in the Egyptian present. Their inscriptions idealize Greece by echoing archaic literature at the same time as they reflect their own historical horizon. While Memnon’s voice falls silent by the end of the second century CE, the statue finds new worshippers among Romantic poets in nineteenth-century Europe.

Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-291
Author(s):  
Mitzi J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black People ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Class I ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Culture Of Fear ◽  
Howard Thurman

This essay examines Howard Thurman’s interpretation of the historical Jesus and the religion of Jesus in his 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited (jatd). Thurman interprets Jesus within his first century CE socio-historical context and from the perspective of disinherited African Americans. He articulates the significance of the religion of Jesus, versus religion about Jesus, for the disinherited and how it can ensure their survival. Since jatd addresses race/racism and class/classism but not the intersection of race, gender, and class, I place jatd in conversation with black feminist Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, womanist theologian Delores Williams’ Sisters in the Wilderness, and Angela Sim’s Lynched, who focus on the survival of black women (Lorde and Williams) and the resilience of black people living in a culture of fear.

scholarly journals Mulheres Negras e a Discussão de Gênero na Construção das Narrativas nos Museus de Salvador

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Joana Angélica Flores Silva
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
White Woman ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Historical Museums ◽  
The Feminine

O artigo trata da representação das mulheres negras nos museus históricos de Salvador, a partir dos vieses em gênero, raça e classe ao analisar o lugar que as mesmas ocupam nas exposições de longa duração, levando em consideração a teia de relações estabelecidas na tríade HomemXObjetoXRealidade. A abordagem se debruça sobre o discurso construído pelos museus ao atribuir à mulher branca o papel de protagonista na historiografia do país, enquanto que concede a figura da escravizada à mulher negra nesse mesmo contexto histórico, o que retroalimenta o imaginário coletivo quando lhe outorga a condição de subalterna. Com base na práxis museológica, a pesquisa deter-se-á no âmbito da reinterpretação dos signos, no processo de musealização dos objetos que representam o universo feminino. Assim, o estudo traz como contribuição, a reflexão acerca da construção de novas narrativas que evidenciem de forma não discriminatória a participação dos sujeitos nos espaços de memória. Palavras-Chave: Museus de Salvador; Museologia; Gênero; Mulheres negras; Representações ABSTRACT The article deals this the representation of black women in the historical museums of Salvador, starting in the gender, race and class. Analyzing the place they occupy in long - term exhibit, taking into account of relationships established in the triad Man x Object x Reality. The approach focuses on the discourse constructed by the museums in assigning the white woman the role of protagonist in the historiography of the country, while granting the figure of the enslaved to the black woman, in this same historical context, which feeds the collective imaginary when it grantates the subordinate condition. Based on the museological praxis, the research will focus on the reinterpretation of signs, in the process of musealization of objects that represent the feminine universe. Therefore, this article bring forward a contribution, the reflection about the construction of new narratives that evidence in a non-discriminatory way the participation of the subjects in the memory spaces. Keywords: Museums of Salvador; Museology; Genre; Black Women; Representations

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. xxx-18
Author(s):  
Ellen C. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Byzantine Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Mediterranean World

The introduction to this handbook explains the scope and purpose of Byzantine art, architecture and visual culture from 330 to 1453, across the Eastern Mediterranean world, including Italy and the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East. It begins with an overview of the role of the arts in religious and secular life, and explains the periodicization of the field into Early, Middle and Late phases as a useful way to consider these artistic productions. It presents the development in scholarly approaches that flow from the beginning phase of Byzantine art history when modern scholars were first discovering the wealth of Byzantine materials, to the later analysis and interpretation of the arts in their historical roles, and finally to the contemporary use of newer (including scientific) techniques and interdisciplinary approaches often incorporating methods from other fields. Consideration of the arts after 1453 that continue to show Byzantine influence is included. Dissemination of information including publications, digital opportunities and display in collections and exhibitions is discussed. The section presents information about the authors, the use of the handbook, and offers thoughts for future exploration in the field of Byzantine art.

Traditional Religion in West Africa and in the New World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Hazzard-Donald
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
The United States ◽  
West African ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
First Century ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
African Society ◽  
African Traditional Religion

This chapter discusses the major manifestations of African traditional religion in the New World. It outlines significant general principles and practices carried to the Western Hemisphere by captive Africans from two regions, which inform West and Central West African religious practices as well as the major New World African religious manifestations establishing where Hoodoo fits in vis-à-vis the other New World syncretic religious forms. It considers the practice of spirit possession by a deity, spirit, or ancestor as part of West and Central West African religious tradition, and how it came to be observed in sacred contexts among African Americans in the United States in the twenty-first century. The chapter also examines the place of spiritual forces in herbal and naturopathic healing within the context of African traditional religion. Finally, it looks at the role of divination in the diagnosis of physical or mental illness in both traditional African society and in old plantation Hoodoo.

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