Religion in Africa: Experience & Expression

by Dennis L Thomson, Thomas D. Blakely, Walter EA van Beek

Overview

This is the first major collection for over a decade on the subject of African religion. It is part of a continuous stock-taking solidly grounded in archival and field research in Africa and the African diaspora. This book provides the views of some of the most distinguished academics in the context of African history, anthropology, archaeology, politics, comparative religion, health and healing, languages and literatures, and the visual and performing arts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780435080839
Publisher:	Heinemann
Publication date:	08/15/1994
Series:	Monograph Series of the David M. Kennedy Series , #4
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.28(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dennis L. Thomson is professor of political science at Brigham Young University, where he recently served as Associate Academic Vice President. A former U.S. Foreign Service officer in Africa, he has taught at the University of Arizona and the State University of New York at Binghamton. He did his graduate work at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He publishes on public policy, ethnicity, and religion and politics.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Religion and Its Translatability
Translatability in Islam & in Christianity in Africa, L. Sanneh
Islam in East African Contexts, A. Nanji
Cultural Change & Religious Conversion in West Africa, J.P. Kirby
Christ in African Folk Theology, M. Schoffeleers
African Religion & Mormon Doctrine Compared, D.L. Thomson
Ifa: A West African Cosmological System, W. Ab'mbola
Comparisons over Time and Place
Women & Power in an Edo Spirit Possession Cult, P.G. Ben-Amos
African Religion & Art in Brazil, M.S. Omari
Drums of Affliction: Real Phenomenon or Scholarly Chimera?, J.M. Janzen
Archaeological Evidence of Traditional African Religious Expression, P. de Maret
The Innocent Sorcerer: Coping with Evil in Two African Societies (Kapsiki & Dogon), W.E.A. van Beek
Myth & Epic in Central Africa, L. de Heusch
Instrumentality of Religion
Kimbanguism & the Question of Syncretism in Zaire, W. MacGaffey
Jamaa: A Charismatic Movement Revisited, J. Fabian
The Dialectic of Conversion in the A.M.E. Church in E. Zimbabwe, 1900-1950, T.O. Ranger
Prophetism & Social Change, A. Legesse
Gola Womanhood & the Limits of Masculine Omnipotence, W.L. d'Azevedo
Male & Female Secret Societies in Northern Sierra Leone, S. Ottenberg
Music Performance among the Kpelle of Liberia, R.M. Stone
Men's Oratory & Women's Song-Dance in Hemba Funerary Performance, P.A.R. Blakely & T.D. Blakely
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

The editors of this data-rich volume are to be congratulated for producing an outstanding set of essays, the first major collection in more than a decade on the subject of African religion.”–Choice

From the Publisher

The result of an academic conference held in 1986, this work explores the varieties of the African religious experience as well as its commonalities. The book's theoretical underpinnings are set out in the introduction by the editors, who discuss what constitutes religion in general and how religion is manifested in Africa. Their assertion that African religion, unlike that found in the West, is more group-and problem-oriented and is closely linked to its sociocultural context is confirmed in subsequent chapters by African, European, and American scholars. The individual papers, which are primarily anthropological case studies, treat both indigenous belief systems and Christianity and Islam. This book belongs in all academic collections on Africa.-Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Inst. Lib., Stanford, Cal.

Library Journal