Fatou Toure, a young girl from Mali, will be joining David s class next week. David and his classmates are determined to learn everything they can about Mali in order to welcome their new classmate. They learn that Mali is a land rich in history, with many different peoples and cultures. The varied country can claim deserts, forests, lions, hippos, gold, ancient and modern cities, and some of the world s greatest music. The students learn how to prepare Fatou s favorite snack, bene, and ma...

The first major work of Yoruba mythology, retelling hundreds of traditional tales of the Oriṣa, Yoruba Heroes, and Ijapa from West Africa, Cuba, and Brazil.Yoruba mythology is sacred to the religion and culture of the Yoruba people. A primarily oral tradition, its stories revolve around Olodumare, the Supreme Being, and a vast number of divinities or orisa, who govern all aspects of human life and nature.Yoruba Mythology is, to date, the most compr...

The first sustained treatment of religion and religions in the scholarship of a prominent Caribbean thinkerSylvia Wynter is a profoundly transdisciplinary scholar whose works span an impressive array of theory, literature, science, anthropology, philosophy, and religious studies as well as different forms, including essays, plays, a novel, and a 935-page unpublished manuscript entitled “Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World.” Whatever the medium, Wynter f...

This book is an in-depth, comparative study of two of the most popular and influential intellectual and spiritual traditions of West Africa: Tijani Sufism and Ifa. Employing a unique methodological approach that thinks with and from—rather than merely about—these traditions, Oludamini Ogunnaike argues that they contain sophisticated epistemologies that provide practitioners with a comprehensive worldview and a way of crafting a meaningful life.Using theories belonging to the tradit...

Judith Butler's new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Further, it argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice that emanates from a calm region of the soul, or as an individualist ethical relation to existing forms of power. But, in fact, nonviolence is an ethical position found in the midst of the political field. An aggressive form of nonviolence accepts that hostility is part of our psych...

Identity has become one of the most widely used terms today, appearing in many different contexts. Anything and everything has an identity, and identity crises have become almost equally pervasive. Yet 'identity' is extremely versatile, meaning different things to different people and in different scientific disciplines. To many its meaning seems self-evident, since its various uses share common features, so often the term is used without a definition of what, exactly, is meant by it. This...

One of the most widely discussed philosophers of the 21st century finds common ground between spiritual and secular ethics in this provocative book.As controversial and he was influential, Richard Rorty developed a brand of philosophical pragmatism that rejects all theories of truth. His groundbreaking work also dismisses modern epistemology and its preoccupation with knowledge and representation. Though he was a strict secularist, Rorty believed there could be no ...

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell ...

A theology in tune with postcolonial theory has the potential to creatively inform and transform ecclesial practice. Focusing on the relation of theology to postcolonial theory, Postcolonial Theologies brings together a wide diversity of authors, many of them fresh and exciting theological voices, in essays that are stunningly creative and prophetically lucid. All essays are theologically constructive, not merely deconstructive or critical, in their visions for Christianity. Forming a sort...

For the serious seeker of Reality, the way to this transcendent knowledge has been clearly indicated by the Prophet: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord". Coming to know the inner landscape of the human self is one of the essential foundations for progress on the path of knowledge.This book is a practical and accessible distillation of the tawhidi (unitive) Islamic teachings and insights into the map of the human self. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri has sought to furnish the reader with...