CURRENT ISSUE

 

Volume 3 • Number 5 • 2009

On the Cover: Itibari M. Zulu (imzsr@yahoo.com), Senior Editor, The Journal of Pan African Studies.

● Wanted: A Grammar of Black/African Spirituality
by 'BioDun J. Ogundayo
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The essays in this special edition draw strong linkages between Africans, African American, and, other African Diasporas wherein such connections dispel the enduring Eurocentric vision of Blacks/Africans as people without culture or humanity. Hence, a major theme among the essays is the presence of hybridity as the ultimate expression of spirituality, and thus the creative spirit the people fashion with new spiritualities in new circumstances-whether from collective or individual historical trauma. Consequently, the hope is that the essays in this edition will further the idea of the transcendental nature of Black/African spirituality.

● Nickels in the Nation Sack: Continuity in Africana Spiritual Technologies
by Teresa N. Washington
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An anthropological and ethnographic discussion on the undying spirit of African American mythopoesis as well as its connections to mother Africa, through folklore, ethno-botany, and religion that demonstrates its capacity to create new, hybrid, forms of expressions in the "New World" even after the trauma of the Middle Passage.

● Rhythms of the Gods: Music and Spirituality in Yoruba Culture
by Bode Omojola
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A powerfully evocative celebration of Black/African communication modes as a form of spiritual experience is clear in this essay on Yoruba drums and ethno-musicology. Hence, each musical instrument possesses its own identity while participating in life-affirming rituals, dance and music where parallels can be found, by the discerning reader, between the essay and music theories pertaining to jazz-Black America's enduring gift to the world of music.

● Restorative Justice Sudanese Style: How African Spirituality Impacts Notions of Right and Wrong
by Teresa A. Booker
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An anthropological essay that discusses how various Sudanese ethnic groups' notions of right and wrong result from their religious beliefs, using examples from the indigenous religions of the Nuer, Shilluk, Atout, and the Dinka. Hence, an elaboration on African beliefs in God, the concept of justice, and where possible, how victims and offenders should be treated and rendered whole wherein justice is not simply legal and its foundation is ethical, and therefore located within the peoples' spiritual traditions.

●Restless Spirits: Syncretic Religion in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory
by Yolanda Pierce
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Critical work about the role of religion in Edwidge Danticat's novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, even though religious language is pervasive throughout the text the author uses literary fiction to discuss the intersection of fictional literature and religion in Black/African spirituality.

● Spiritual Abuse and Masculinity Construction among African Adolescents
by David Adebayo Oluwole
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This work addresses the issue of mental health as an element of spirituality in an African context, using clinical, analytical, as well as scholarly skills to bear on mental health and identity in an effort to contribute to an understanding of masculinity construction and the role of religion in modern African societies.