Expertise: African art

Much of my academic career has been spent investigating the impact of Islam upon Africa, a topic that I explored during my initial stint of field-work in Ghana and Ivory Coast and later developed in an exhibition and collection of essays entitled African Islam—the Artistry and Character of Belief (Smithsonian Institution,1984). I have continued to examine this vast topic in a variety of contexts—the rich blending of Arabic written amulets and traditional protective medicines at the court of Asante kings; Muslim ritual and practice among the Bamana of 19^th century Segu—described by French colonials as the “citadel of paganism”; and, in the last several years, the Gnawa of Marrakech, Morocco, where possession ceremonies demonstrate the creative interactions that have been forged between Islam and African artistry within this black community of nearly 20,000 people.

My teaching has tended to be much broader in scope touching upon a variety of topics in what I refer to as comparative tropical art-history. My seminars in the last several years have included such topics as “Tribal” Art in a Post-Colonial World; Imaging the 3^rd World—a consideration of documentary film-making in Africa, Australia and the Pacific; Seeking the Sources of History: On the Use of Historical Methods in the Study of “Third-World” Art and Creativity.

Specialization
Arts of Africa, Oceania, and Aboriginal Australia
Art and Architecture of African Islam
Contemporary Aboriginal acrylic painting
The African Diaspora

Selected Publications

Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa, Cambridge U. Press, 1974 (paperback, 1979)

The Poetry of Form—the Hans and Thelma Lehman Collection of African Art, U.Washington Press, 1982

"Painted Incantations—the Closeness of Allah and Kings in 19^th Century Asante" in Studies of the Asante Center and Periphery, E. Schildkraut, ed., American Museum of Natural History Press, 1987. With Ray A. Silverman.

“The Sahel and Savanna,” in Africa—the Art of a Continent, ed. T. Phillips, Royal Academy of the Arts, 1995