Inventing an African Alphabet - Writing, Art, and Kongo Culture in the Drc

Focusing on the Mandombe alphabet and the life-story of its inventor, David Wabeladio Payi, Ramon Sarró combines biography, art, and religion to explore the connections between religious imagination and innovation in Kongo culture. He offers a unique case study of the search for cultural and epistemological independence in the global south.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of figures; List of maps; List of Glyphs; Acknowledgments; Part I. Introduction: 1. A writing lesson (in Luanda); Part II. Biography: 2. N'kamba: the road to revelation; 3. Kinshasa: the road to the university; 4. The eagle and the silk-cotton tree: my road with Wabeladio; Part III. Writing, Art, and Kongo Culture: 5. The road to the alphabet: the basics of Mandombe; 6. On the Kongo road writing and entrapping culture; 7. The road to art: the basics of Kimbanbula; 8. A different road: reading Wabeladio's 'Method of Discovery'; Part IV. Discussion: 9. How to make words with bricks: some final thoughts on creativity; Bibliography; Index.

Über den Autor / die Autorin

Ramon Sarró is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology of Africa at the University of Oxford. His book The Politics of Religious Change on the Upper Guinea Coast: Iconoclasm Done and Undone received the 2010 Amaury Talbot Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute. His current research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, focuses on prophetic imagination in Angola.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Ramon Sarro, Ramon (University of Oxford) Sarro, Ramon Sarró
• Verlag: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 19.09.2024
• EAN: 9781009199483
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0919948-3
• Seiten: 218
• Serie: The International African Library
• Themen: Geisteswissenschaften, Kunst, Musik > Geschichte > Regional- und Ländergeschichte; Sachbuch > Geschichte > Sonstiges; Sozialwissenschaften, Recht,Wirtschaft > Soziologie > Allgemeines, Lexika; Kongo, HISTORY / Africa / General, Society & culture: general, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social and cultural anthropology, African History, Society and culture: general, Writing systems, alphabets, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), Democratic Republic of Congo, African studies; anthropology; linguistics