
The Light Inside
Abakua Society Arts and Cuban Cultural History
David H. Brown(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 30. September 2020
Book
Hardback
318 pages
978-0-367-24652-5 (ISBN)
Description
Originally published in 2003, The Light Inside is a ground-breaking study of an Afro-Cuban secret society, its sacred arts, and their role in modern Cuban cultural history. Enslaved Africans and creoles developed the Abakua Society, a system of men's fraternal lodges, in urban Cuba beginnings in 1836. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the country, the book's novel approach builds on close readings of dazzling Abakua altars, chalk-drawn signs, and hooded masquerades. It looks at the art history of Abakua altars, not only tracing changing styles but also how they evolve through cycles of tradition and renovation. The Light Inside reflects the essence of the artists' creativity and experience: through adornment, altars project the powerful spirituality of Abakua practice, an aesthetic strategy. The book also traces a biography of Abakua objects - their shifting forms and meanings - as they participated in successive periods of Cuban cultural history. The book constructs close rhetorical and visual analyses of changing representations of the Abakua, spanning nineteenth-century arts and letters, modern ethnographic texts, museum displays, paintings, and late twentieth century commercial kitsch. This interdisciplinary work combines art history, African Diaspora, cultural studies and cultural anthropology with Latin American.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 174 mm
Weight
760 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-24652-5 (9780367246525)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
09/2021
1st Edition
Routledge
€45.79
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
08/2019
1st Edition
Routledge
€48.49
Available for download

E-Book
08/2019
1st Edition
Routledge
€48.49
Available for download
Person
David H. Brown
Content
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Part I: "The Light Inside": Abakua Society Arts and Modern Cuban Cultural History Introduction: Meanings, Methods, and the Cultural Biography of Things Abakua 2. The Abakua Society and the African Society Diaspora 3. Abakua Altar Arts: Ekue, Representation, and the Banner of Regla's Efori Enongo 4. Cloth and Signs: West African Ukara and the Iconography of Regla's Efori Enongo 5. Altars, Offices, and Multiple Meanings 6. "Symbolic Drums:" Innovations and Inventions 7. The Iremes and Their Sacos Part II: El Nanigo "Graduates" 8. Pictures, Performances, and the Police: Changing Contexts for Costumbrista Arts 9. Struggle over Possession of the Secret: The Museuming of the Nanigos' "Most Sacred Effects" 10. From Atavism to Modern Primitivism 11. From Primitivism to Folklore 12. We were Teaching How to Ask the Black Man About Very Private Personal Things: Afrocubana, the Triumph of the Revolution, and Socialist Folklore 13: "The Ethnographic Museum" and the Cuban Revolution 14. Conclusion: The Abakua Society and the National Narrative Notes References Index