A Most Majestic Fly Whisk

  Between the Two my Heart is Balanced , Lubaina Himid "Time is a difficult topic for historians. I remember an occasion when I was in the history department and I commented that—alluding to Koselleck—modern history not only is in time but also operates through it. This generated a rather snide comment from a colleague, a disgust with 'theory,' which is the only explanation for something that needlessly complicates what is so obvious and commonsensical as time."  — Stefan Tanaka, History without Chronology "Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, 'How will you be when the son of Mary descends upon you while your leader is among you?'”  — Sahih al-Bukahri  3449 Hello, everyone! Pretty last minute for a (belated!) birthday post…already something of a tradition. Ramadan moved up in the Gregorian calendar again so March 12th is actually inside the month this year. This shift + getting older has me thinking about ti...

  Bodys Isek Kingelez's 'extrêmes maquettes' of a weird-future Kinshasa (Kin la belle!) were a major influence on the Goma of  VCS "The story of ‘conflict minerals’ serves both as a cautionary tale and a powerful call to decolonise transnational governance and peacebuilding practice. It highlights the lack of ‘situated knowledge’ and critically interrogates the white saviourism that emanates from an unholy alliance that brings together (neo-)colonial frames, digital capitalism, neoliberal interventionism and humanitarianism."  — Christoph N. Vogel, Conflict Minerals, Inc.: War, Profit and White Saviourism in Eastern Congo "Congo is great; it requires greatness of spirit from us."   — Luc Nkulula Fucked up in the club, crying to a Tshala Muana record. I had a conversation about some of this recently and thought it might be worthwhile to put a version in a more permanent place. I haven't done a Congopost in a while, which is weird for this blog; it...

  Illustration for the EAPH combined reprint of Song of Lawino/Song of Ocol  by Frank Horley "The royal councillors were stunned at this answer, and stood in amazed silence, convinced she had known this by some supernatural power. For them, it was a miracle, and something to be taken seriously. Father Bernardo appeared less impressed and continued his questioning. 'Who are you?" he asked her. She replied gravely, as if every word were a serious matter, and slowly, as if carefully considering each remark, 'I am Saint Anthony, come from Heaven.'" - John K. Thornton's  The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian movement, 1684-1706 BOOKPOSTING IS BACK !! I've always loved this style of blogpost and now I have a blog to participate with. Helps that it's kinda low-intensity on a day like Ashura. Pour (a non-alcoholic) one out for Husayn, y'all. 1. “To Awaken the Soul’s Water”: Shared Systems of Communal Recollection in t...

  It really is an incredible piece, all jokes aside. There is something weird + cool about seeing Chibind Yirung as a venerable elder, since he tends to fade from Ruund versions of the Lunda foundational epic after the "Lueji has a new boyfriend" part and the "no woman ruler >:( " part.  Hey guys, hope y'all have been doin ok. Summer approaches! Been pleased with this past semester of grad school and v. pleased with my first semester of teaching! The SWN game I’ve been running for our HS’s freshly minted tabletop club is about to go on hiatus for the break after this next session + the grading period is coming to a close, so it’s like a sprint to the finish line rn. I’ll maybe do a retrospective post once things settle? Either that or finally get around to talking about PF2E’s Mwangi Expanse.  We aren’t doing any of that today lmao, just want to ramble about some weird shit I saw. There's a cool new Maya exhibition happening at the Kimbell, a nearby museu...

  ayoh kré Duchâtelet, Ornaments and Crimes Wanted to do a last post before the twin scourges of term papers and grading take me out of commission - a couple folks have expressed interest in my NooFutra campaign set in the Eastern DR Congo, so I thought it would be cool to write up a quick survey of some stuff I read (still reading in some cases) to prepare for this game.  Housekeeping A new friend, UnFuturism/Rachel, asked me if I plan to make  Volcano City Soukous into a setting guide or the like when the campaign is done. I honestly don't know. Not fully comfortable trying to codify stuff for this game. It's easy to read a bunch of books in prep; the real trick is being able to encode all that background reading + general knowledge in a text meant to be played. I'm also unsure of the boundaries : my position has long been that Afrodiasporic people don't have carte blanche to speak about the Continent without putting in work just by virtue of having another shared e...

Gorgeous example of bwami bwa kifebwe art - male elder mask with a powerful sorcerer's crest and pre-carnivalization coloring. Studied by Hersek "in the field" near Kikomo, now owned by a private collecting fuck from Venice Beach You don't have to be very familiar with the Northern Italian roots of microhistory (in the work of Ginzburg, Levi, Poni, Grendi, et al.) as a methodological approach to be aware of its products - classics like The Cheese and the Worms , The Return of Martin Guerre , and The Great Cat Massacre are still v popular both in and out of the classroom - or understand its dissatisfaction with Annales school longue durée analysis + grand narrative (Muir's " gigantification of historical scale ")...but it does help with blog posts! Channeling Marcia’s Freudposting on this one. Zooming In The microhistorical approach raises questions about selectivity and significance. By what criteria are names to be picked out and how representative of ...

  Eastern Pende kishikishi rooftop finial, produced by an unknown master-carver* "The artisan-poet is not concerned to make a work for eternity. The work of art is perishable. The style and the spirit are preserved, but the old work is quickly replaced and realized anew as soon as it becomes antiquated or is destroyed" - Léopold Sédar Senghor, The General Nature of African Art Every poster gets three annoying neologisms and I'm striking one off right now .   Also, Ramadan Mubarak, y'all! Despite my questionable orthodoxy ("wallahi bro law-bearing dreams are canonical just read the Futuhat and also enter khilwa for 40 days") + general laziness, I do love the month. Hard to beat free chai every night and group singings of vaguely sexual Sufi odes at 3am. Def don't think that they're for everyone, but ritual austerities have been surprisingly helpful in supplementing my meditation exercises and the like. Anyways, I hope everyone has a peaceful month ...