Most of the objects that appear in the Spirited Things exhibition at the Fleming Museum are catalogued on the Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic (SABA) site.

Here is a short video describing the Ifa Divination System:

Here is an article about Robert Farris Thompson, the author of our class text book. Read the article to learn more about his research on Afro-Atlantic art and culture, his approach towards studying the Black Atlantic, and his teaching style.

RFT dancing in his undergraduate class at Yale, photo by Mark Ostow.

Thompson’s central contribution to his field has been his insistence on understanding African art in context, understanding what it communicates on its home turf. Because of Thompson’s keen interest in context, his take on art history encompasses not only visual art and architecture, but also anthropology, language, religion, ethnomusicology, dance history, and philosophy. His aim, says one former PhD student, is to map “the artistic geography of the African world”; another says that Thompson studies “the diversity of blackness, of blacknesses.” Cornel West, who teaches African American studies at Princeton, calls this white man from Texas “my dear brother” and “one of the greatest pioneers in the study of Afro-American culture and African culture.”

Thompson wants his students to recognize how aspects of African cultures infuse not only the music, art, and dance of the Americas, but also philosophy, religious practice, textile design, everyday gestures, and even vocabulary as quotidian as Uh-huh (yes) and Unh-unh (no). According to David Doris ’02PhD, a professor of African art history at the University of Michigan, “He coined the term that became prevalent in academia: ‘Black Atlantic.’” Says Thompson, “We can’t know how American we are unless we know how black we are.”

Read more at the following link: Professor of mambo

Chano Pozo:

Afro-Cuban songs for the Oricha: