Time in the Black Experience

(Hardback)

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In the first book which deals entirely with the subject of time in Africa and the Black Diaspora, Adjaye presents ten critical case studies of selected communities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the American South. The essays cover a wide spectrum of manifestations of temporal experience, including cosmological and genealogical time, physical and ecological cycles, time and worldview, social rhythm, agricultural and industrial time, and historical processes and consciousness. The studies confirm the continuity of temporal experience among Africans from pre-colonial times, through the colonial period in Africa, across continents through slavery and Maroon societies, to present-day communities like the Gullah of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. The subject of time, now recognized to be relative rather than uniform, draws together evidence from a variety of disciplines, specifically history, linguistics, political science, anthropology, and philosophy.

Reviews

This book contributes to what should be a central thematic and methodological issue in African and African Diaspora studies...That topic is time.-International Journal of African Historical Studies
"This book contributes to what should be a central thematic and methodological issue in African and African Diaspora studies...That topic is time."-International Journal of African Historical Studies

Author Bio

JOSEPH K. ADJAYE is Associate Professor of History in the Black Studies and History Departments of the University of Pittsburgh. His earlier book, Diplomacy and Diplomats in Nineteenth-Century Asante (1984), won the Choice book award.