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Arts of Being Yoruba

Arts of Being Yoruba

Divination, Allegory, Tragedy, Proverb, Panegyric

by Adélékè Adéèkó

Published by: Indiana University Press

Imprint: Indiana University Press

152.00 × 229.00 mm, 13 b&w illus., 3 tables

EPUB
9780253026729
Published: July 2017

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

There is a culturally significant way of being Yorùbá that is expressed through dress, greetings, and celebrations—no matter where in the world they take place. Adélékè Adék documents Yorùbá patterns of behavior and articulates a philosophy of how to be Yorùbá in this innovative study. As he focuses on historical writings, Ifá divination practices, the use of proverbs in contemporary speech, photography, gendered ideas of dressing well, and the formalities of ceremony and speech at celebratory occasions, Adéékó contends that being Yorùbá is indeed an art and Yorùbá-ness is a dynamic phenomenon that responds to cultural shifts as Yorùbá people inhabit an increasingly globalized world.

Introduction
1. "Writing" and "Reference" in Ifaì Divination Chants
2. Culture, Meaning, Proverbs
3. Reading, Writing, and Epistemic Instability in Faìguìnwa's Novels
4. Sex, Gender, and Plot in FaìguìnwaÌ's Adventures
5. Lost in Translation: IÌsòoÌòlaì's Eòfuìnsòetaìn AniìwuìraÌ and YoruÌbaì Woman-Being
6. From Orality to Visuality: Photography and the Panegyric in Contemporary YoruÌbaì Culture
Conclusion: Book Launching as Cultural Affirmations
Bibliography
Index

Adélékè Adéèk is Humanities Distinguished Professor in the English and African American and African Studies departments at Ohio State University. He is the author of Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature and The Slave's Rebellion: Literature, History, Orature (IUP).

Arts of Being Yoruba is timely and strategic. It is a commendable output, which makes pronouncements that further rekindles hope and sustained interest in African cultural studies generally.
~African Studies Quarterly

In uniting various themes and topics, the book creates a tool and methodology to rethink interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, hybridity, and modernity. Recommended.
~Choice

Arts of Being Yorùbá is a needed contribution to Yorùbá studies and a welcome rejoinder to a more culturally essentialist understanding of what it means to be – or not be – Yorùbá.
~Journal of Modern African Studies

This book will remain an unparalleled prestigious excavation of the very best in Yorùbá artistic, literary, cultural, and philosophical studies for many years to come. It belongs in every Yorùbá household as well as in the archives of Yorùbá social and cultural history.
~Research in African Literature