This book argues for a radical new approach to thinking about art and
creativity in Africa, challenging outdated normative discourses about Africa’s
creative heritage.
Africanism, which is driven by a traumatic response to colonialism in Africa,
has an almost unshakable stranglehold on the content, stylistics, and meaning
of art in Africa. Post-African aesthetics insists on the need to move beyond
this counter-colonial self-consciousness and to considerably change, rework,
and enlarge the ground, principles, and mission of artistic imagination and
creativity in Africa. This book critiques and dismantles the tropes of Africanism
and Afrocentrism, providing the criteria and methodology for a Post-African
art theory or Post-African aesthetics. Grounded initially in essays by Denis
Ekpo, the father of Post-Africanism, the book then explores a range of
applications and interpretations of Post-African theory to the art forms and
creative practices in Africa.
With particular reference to South Africa, this book will be of interest to
researchers across the disciplines of Art, Literature, Media Studies, Cultural
Anthropology, and African Studies.