New research explores Muslim arts and identities in postcolonial Africa.
This collection explores the dynamic place of Islamic art, architecture, and creative expression in processes of decolonization across the African continent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Presenting new methodologies for accentuating African agency and expression in stories about Islamic art, it is a vital new contribution to recent widespread efforts to liberate the art historical canon.
Bringing together new work by leading specialists in the fields of African, Islamic, and modern arts and visual cultures, the book directs unprecedented attention to the contributions of African and Muslim artists in articulating modernities in local and international arenas. Interdisciplinary and transregional in scope, it enriches the under-told story of Muslim experiences and expression in Africa, which is home to nearly half a million Muslims, or a third of the global Muslim population.
Furthermore, the book elucidates the role of Islam and its expressive cultures in postcolonial articulations of modern identities and heritage, as expressed by a diverse range of actors and communities based in Africa and its diaspora. Countering notions of Islam as a retrograde or static societal phenomenon in Africa or elsewhere, contributors propose new methodologies for accentuating human agency and experience over superficial disciplinary boundaries in the stories we tell about art making and visual expression thus contributing to widespread efforts to decolonize scholarship on histories of modern expression.
Edited by:
Ashley Miller
Imprint: Intellect Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 230mm,
Width: 170mm,
ISBN: 9781835950005
ISBN 10: 1835950000
Series: Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East
Pages: 302
Publication Date: 15 November 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Acknowledgements Introduction: Un-Disciplining African Muslim Expressive Cultures Ashley Miller Part I – BEYOND BORDERS: African (and) Muslim Objects as ‘Relational Loci’ 1. Dispersal, Decolonization, and Dominance: African Muslim Objects from the Swahili Sultanate of Witu (1858–1923) Zulfikar Hirji 2. ‘A Land that Fulfils Dreams’: Rethinking Zanzibar’s Stone Town Beyond a Colonial Imaginary Michelle Apotsos Part II – DISOBEDIENT MEDIA: Reclaiming African Muslim Expressive Cultures 3. ‘Disobedient’ Perspectives on African Muslim Arts Allen F. Roberts and Mary Nooter Roberts 4. Entanglements of Belonging: Regional and Global Bonds in an Urban Muslim Masquerade Lisa Homann 5. Tattooing as Subversive Archive: Safaa Mazirh’s Reclamation of Tattoos in Postcolonial Morocco Cynthia Becker Part III – MOBILIZING HERITAGE: Painting Postcolonial Identities 6. Calligraphy in Mauritania: Creating a Lost Identity Mark Dike DeLancey 7. Surrealist Possessions: Wifredo Lam, Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar, and Ibrahim El-Salahi Alex Dika Seggerman 8. Cybernetics and Postcolonial Utopias Holiday Powers Part IV – UNDISCIPLINED CONSTRUCTIONS: Relocating ‘Islamic’ Architecture in Africa 9. Between Art and Architecture, Modernism and Makhzen Emma Chubb 10. Kader Attia’s Alternative History of the Grands Ensembles, from France to Algeria and Back Jacobé Huet Index
Ashley Miller is Assistant Curator of African Art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, USA. She specializes in the visual and material cultures of twentieth-century Morocco, with a broader expertise in issues of heritage and collective memory, the history of museums in Africa, and the entanglement of modern art production with problems of identity and representation in colonial and postcolonial Africa.
