Synopses & Reviews
Johannes Fabian was one of the first anthropologists to introducethe concept of popular culture into the study of contemporary Africa. Drawing on hisresearch in the Shaba region of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), he hasbeen writing for thirty years about the practices, beliefs, and objects that make uppopular culture in an urban African setting: labor and language, religiousmovements, theater and storytelling, music and painting, grassroots literacy andhistoriography.
In Moments of Freedom Fabianreflects on anthropological uses of the concept of popular culture. He retraces howhis explorations of popular culture in this urban-industrial setting showed thatclassiclal culture theory did not account for large aspects of contemporary Africanlife. Popular culture draws on various genres of representation and performance, andFabian explores the notion of genre itself as it applies to Shaba religiousdiscourse, painting, and the theater. He also addresses the element of time and howspatial thinking about culture, ethnicity, and globalization acts as an obstacle toappreciating the contemporaneity of African popular culture. The volume ends with adiscussion of contestation in light of current calls fordemocratization.
In Moments of Freedom, JohannesFabian takes stock of decades of anthropological work on popular culture andexamines the development of his own thought over time. Throughout the volume, hemakes eloquent connections to other firelds such as history, folklore studies, andcultural studies, suggesting areas for further research in each.
Synopsis
In Moments of Freedom, Johannes Fabian, one of the first anthropologists to introduce the concept of popular culture into the study of contemporary Africa, reflects on the practices, beliefs, and objects that make up the concept in an urban African setting: labor and language, religious movements, theater and storytelling, music and painting, grassroots literacy and historiography.