Academic literature on the topic 'Folklore, africa, central'

The African-American missionary, William Henry Sheppard Jr. (1865-1927), lived in the Kuba kingdom of central Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. A student of Virginia's Hampton (Normal) Institute in the early 1880s, Sheppard left the United States a decade later to preach in the Congo Free State, a colonial territory claimed by Belgian monarch Leopold II. This king's army, the Force Publique, and its local auxiliaries spawned suffering throughout the equatorial region. They pillaged villages in Kasai, the southern Congo area surrounding Sheppard's Presbyterian outposts, killing families and driving survivors into brigades that collected wild rubber for European concessionary companies. This rubber boom, in turn, generated profits that not only enriched Leopold II and his business allies, but also propelled a revolution in transportation that culminated in the mass production of tires for the bicycle and automobile. Sheppard is known for bearing witness to Congo atrocities, but his ground-breaking ethnological research remains unfamiliar to many Africanists. It is fortunate for these scholars that the college that nurtured Sheppard's fascination with folklore, Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), houses his papers, photographs, and artwork. This paper introduces and analyzes these sources.

This article discusses the central “ignored” role that women play in disseminating vital societal information through folklore. It explores the limited conceptions and constructions of their roles in literature and the media today where they are confined to housekeeping duties. It argues that through story-telling—the cornerstone of communal revitalisation—women play a pivotal task in ensuring the well-being of their communities. In advancing this argument, the article takes into account the fact that folktales have formed the basis of African formal education and training, which was meant for cognitive development of the African child. The major concern is, despite the tremendous contribution of women into the development, re-engineering and redesigning of the society, women are not taken or taking themselves seriously when it comes to societal decision-making issues. This paper mainly depends on a literature review and qualitative research methodology. A sample of 25 homes was selected randomly in the Bikita District of Masvingo Province in Zimbabwe. Data were collected orally from the story-tellers. Thereafter, an analysis was undertaken to establish the strategic role of women in disseminating information.

A participatory research model was used in six village communities in the Central Region of the North West Province of South Africa in order to achieve the following broad objectives : to obtain information on the challenges owners face in raising livestock in these areas and to evaluate the livestock owners' level of knowledge of internal parasites in their animals. Information obtained at participatory workshops clearly indicated a need for improvements in water supply, schools, job creation, and health services. Lack of pasture for grazing livestock was also cited as being important. Other most frequently mentioned livestock problems included 'gall sickness' (a vaguely defined condition not necessarily referring to anaplasmosis), parasites (both external and internal), chicken diseases and ingestion of plastic bags discarded in the environment. When livestock owners were questioned during individual interviews, most were able to identify the presence of parasites in either the live or dead animal. However, it seems likely that this is limited to the identification of tapeworms. It was found that most livestock owners use a combination of treatments, ranging from traditional to folklore to commercial. There were some difficulties in using the participatory methods since it was the first time that the facilitators and the communities had been exposed to them. Many communities had difficulty in dealing with the concept of finding solutions within the community, which is such an integral part of participatory methods.

AbstractAlready two hundred years ago folklorists realized the dialectics of ‘dying out’ and ‘revival’ of folklore genres. The shift of the narrative contexts, the rapid development of techniques of communication in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries do not mean that all old, ‘classical’ forms of folklore ceased to exist. Themes, motifs, genres might survive. But it was the social base of folklore which changed most definitely. In the 1960s, the heyday of the revival of (worldwide) comparative philology, the concept of Volkserzahlungsgemeinschaft emerged. Since then new research paradigms were launched, but the comparative and textual perspective of folk narrative studies remained the central issue. Such typically old species of research (e.g., tale-type catalogues, tale-type and genre monographs, critical editions of famous collections) appeared continuously. Besides, new fields such as morphologic and structural analyses, paremiology, contemporary narratives or ideological criticism of folklore texts have been explored. The emergence of Soviet, African, Asian or Baltic folkloristics was very productive. Furthermore, there are works dedicated to ‘new’ systems of folk narrative theories. Although we should not disregard the increasing number of new trends, the last half-century of folk narrative research ‘will never come back’.

Scholarship negotiating African folktales and the entire folkloric tradition in Africa has always been constituted as harbouring fundamental lacks. One of these lacks is the supposed incapacity of oral cultures to produce high literature. However, it is true that folktales and other oral forms in Africa can participate actively in the social, political and cultural process. In this paper, we engage folktales told by the Tiv of central Nigeria and situate them within the dynamic of history, culture, modernity and national construction in Nigeria. The paper adopts a historicist and culturalist perspective in its interpretation of the folktales which were collected in particular Tiv communities. This methodological approach helps to crystallize the historical and cultural lineaments embedded in the people’s experiences, values and worldviews. It also constitutes a contextual background for the understanding of the folktales as they offer informed commentaries on social currents and political contingencies in Nigeria. It argues that though folktales belong to a pre-scientific and pre-industrial dispensation, they are part of the people’s intangible cultural heritage and are capable of distilling powerful statements which negotiate Nigerian modernity and postcolonial condition. The paper underscores the dynamism and functionality of folktales even in an increasingly globalised ethos.

Фольклорные мотивы «внешней души» (персонаж умирает, когда уничтожены какой-то предмет или существо) и «ахиллесовой пяты» (уязвимое место персонажа находится на его теле, а не во внутренних органах) используются для объяснения смертности/бессмертия персонажа. Как и 2700 других, мировое распределение которых отражено в нашей электронной базе данных, эти мотивы являются не порождением универсального «первобытного сознания», а продуктом конкретных исторических процессов и обстоятельств. Цель статьи – определить эпоху и регион их первоначального распространения. Для этого сопоставлены материалы по Новому и Старому Свету. В Центральной и Южной Африке, в Австралии и Меланезии данные мотивы редки или вовсе отсутствуют, поэтому их появление уже в эпоху выхода-из-Африки невероятно. «Ахиллесова пята» обычна в текстах северо- и южноамериканских индейцев, включая огнеземельцев, тогда как ее евразийский ареал сильно разрежен. «Внешняя душа» популярна в пределах большей части Евразии, но в Америке встречается только к северу от Рио-Гранде. В последние тысячелетия на территории Старого Света мотив «ахиллесовой пяты» был, по-видимому, в основном вытеснен мотивом «внешней души», а в Америке сохранился благодаря ее изоляции от Евразии. Оба мотива были принесены в Новый Свет на ранних этапах его заселения. Их почти полное отсутствие в северо-восточной Азии и на северо-западе Северной Америки исключает позднюю диффузию через Берингов пролив. Соответственно возраст данных мотивов в Евразии должен превышать 15 тыс. лет, причем «ахиллесова пята», вероятно, древнее. Отсутствие или редкость этих мотивов в фольклоре народов северо-востока Сибири, где они должны были быть известны накануне их переноса в Новый Свет, согласуется с данными о значительных изменениях в генофонде населения Сибири в течение голоцена. Усложненный вариант «внешней души» с последовательным вложением животных и предметов, являющихся ее вместилищами, в Америке отсутствует. Он распространился лишь после античной эпохи в контексте волшебной сказки.The “external soul” (person dies when some object or creature is destroyed) and the “Achilles heel” (The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s body and not in his inner organs) are folklore motifs used to explain why a particular person cannot be killed or how he can be killed. As other 2700 motifs which global distribution is demonstrated in our database, the “external soul” and the “Achilles heel” are a product not of the universal “primitive mind” but of particular historical processes and circumstances and we try to reveal the age and region of their initial spread. In Central and South Africa, Australia and Melanesia both motifs are rare or totally absent. This makes improbable their origin in the Out-of-Africa time. The “Achilles heel” is often found in North and South America but its Eurasian area is sporadic. On the contrary, the “external soul” is very popular across most of Eurasia but in the New World it, is found only in North but not in South America. It looks plausible that in the Old World the motif of “Achilles heel” was mostly ousted by the “external soul” being preserved in the New World thanks to its isolation from Eurasia. The lack or rarity of these motifs in the Northeast Asia and in Alaska and American Arctic excludes, possibility of their late diffusion across Bering Strait. Because both motifs were brought to America by the early migrants, their age in Eurasia must exceed 15,000 years, the “Achilles heel” being probably older. At the time of the peopling of America, both motifs had to be well known to the oral traditions of the Northeast Asia. Their rarity or absence there in historic time is in conformity with significant differences between genetic samples of Early and Late Holocene populations of Siberia. The complicated version of the “external soul” according to which a life essence is hidden in a series of objects and beings, one inside the other, is absent in America. Such a variant probably spread across the Old World after the end of antiquity being used in fairytales.

Abstract Background The plant Olax subscorpioidea Oliv (Olacaceae) is a shrub that is widely available in Africa. It has been used in traditional medicine to treat various diseases including asthma, pain, inflammation, gastrointestinal and central nervous system (CNS) disorders, cough, diabetes mellitus, cancer, infectious diseases, hepatic diseases, and many other diseases. Several phytochemical and pharmacological investigations were conducted on this plant. However, comprehensive information on this medicinally important plant is not available in the literature. Therefore, in this review, we aimed to provide comprehensive and critical information on all the reported ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry, pharmacological activities, and potential toxicity of Olax subscorpioidea to highlight its therapeutic potentials based on traditional usage and identify research gaps as a basis for further investigations to develop novel therapeutic compounds. Main body The available information about the plant was retrieved from the online bibliographic databases (PubMed and Google Scholar) and published PhD dissertation using the search terms Olax subscorpioidea, traditional uses, ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and safety. Phytochemical studies have shown that the plant contains several bioactive compounds such as rutin, morin, quercetin, caffeic acid, santalbic acid, n-hexadecanoic acid, squalene, nonacosane, hentriacontane, and many more compounds. Also, pharmacological investigations revealed that Olax subscorpioidea has antidepressant, antiepileptic, anti-Alzheimer’s, cytotoxic, antioxidant, antihyperlipidemic, analgesic, antiinflammatory, antiarthritic, antidiabetic, anticancer, antiulcer, antimicrobial, hepatoprotective, apoptotic, antiprotease, and other CNS effects. Conclusion Several pharmacological studies on Olax subscorpioidea have established its ethnopharmacological uses. However, there are limited phytochemical and pharmacological studies to validate other folkloric claims of the plant. Therefore, extensive phytochemical and further pre-clinical efficacy and safety evaluations to fully establish its therapeutic potentials and elucidate its mechanisms of pharmacological actions could be necessary. Graphical abstract

Bacterial Meningitis (BM) is the most common serious infection of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). This research aims to determine the mineral composition and to evaluate the in vitro antibacterial activity of the Juice Extract of Allium Sativum, Ethanolic Extract of Allium Sativum and Aqueous Extract of Allium sativum (JEAS, EEAS and AEAS). The collected bulbs of A. sativum (600 g) were washed and air dried under shade for 2 hours and the dry scaly outer covering was peeled-off to obtain the fresh garlic cloves which were then divided into three parts of 200 g each. These three portions were crushed separately for cold extraction. The first portion was homogenized and poured into a muslin cloth to squeeze out the juice, while second and third portions were homogenized and submerged into 500 ml of 96% ethanol and 500 ml of distilled water respectively for 24 hours and both filtered after thorough shaking. The antibacterial activity of bulbs of A. sativum juice, ethanolic and aqueous (JEAS, EEAS and AEAS) extracts as folkloric medicine against clinical isolates were determined using Agar well diffusion and broth dilution method. Distilled water, concentrated nitric acid (HNO3) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) were used to digest the extract, which was then heated in water bath at 90ºC and filtered to obtain the filtrate for the analytical studies for A. sativum nutritional composition and zeolite herbominerals. The micro-herbominerals with their proximate values observed pharmacologic of Silver, Manganese, Zinc, Iron and Selenium; which has biocidal properties as well as immune system to cushioning the challenges of the BM pathogens. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and phytochemical screening of the extracts were evaluated. The results obtained showed that the juice and ethanolic extracts were potent, inhibiting the growth of clinical isolates with zone of inhibition ranging from 14-36 mm. The extracts inhibited bacterial isolates in concentration dependant manner with MICs ranging 0.02-15 mg/ml and MBCs 0.04-5 mg/ml. Phytochemical screening of the extracts revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, anthraquinone, carbohydrates, fats and oils, steroidal ring, saponins and terpenoids. This experimental investigation has provided the scientific validation basis for the ethnomedical use of A. sativum as a remedy to treat bacterial meningitis locally as anti-infectious agent.

The word 'nigger' is arguably the most charged epithet in American English; thus it is surprising that this word has been appropriated by some African Americans to refer to themselves. To be precise, the African-American version of this term is not 'nigger' but 'nigga', a word that has, as Geneva Smitherman notes, "a variety of meanings ranging from positive to negative to neutral" (Black Talk 167). Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his study of African-American literature, provides a theoretical foundation for understanding why some African Americans use this word and how it operates rhetorically. Building on Gates's work, I will argue that the co-optation of the slur often involves a complex of three rhetorical devices that fall under the rubric of an African-American rhetorical strategy called Signifyin(g)—a term that will be discussed at length later. The first of these devices is agnominatio, defined as "the repetition of a word with an alteration of both one letter and a sound" (Gates 46). The second, semantic inversion, is the reversal of the meaning of a term (Holt qtd. in Smitherman, "Chain"). Chiastic slaying, the third rhetorical strategy, is a critique that transforms the status of a group or individual.1 Through these three modes of rhetorical transfiguration, the slur 'nigger' becomes 'nigga' a positive term that carries with it a critique of racism. I will further argue that all of these rhetorical devices operate through a principle I term "semantic looping" in which a new term derives meaning by continual reference to an older, existing term. This principle is a key to understanding how Signifyin(g) works in the appropriation of 'nigger' and helps to reveal how, in the words of Michel Foucault, the appropriation is a culturally rooted form of "reverse discourse" (101). Ultimately, this rhetorical analysis reveals that the African-American usage of 'nigga' is a strategy for asserting the humanity of black people in the face of continuing racism, a strategy that celebrates an anti-assimilationist vision of African-American identity. Foucault has argued that while the naming of oppressed groups by those in power serves as an instrument for oppression, such naming can also engender group identification and resistance to oppression (101). The coining of the word 'homosexual', for example, allowed for the repression of gay people but also allowed homosexuals to organise a gay rights movement using the very terminology utilized to oppress them (Foucault 101). One strategy for resisting hostile slurs like 'queer' or 'nigger' is for the oppressed group to appropriate the name and transform it into a rallying cry or "reverse discourse". An understanding of how 'nigga' operates as a reverse discourse requires a culturally rooted rhetorical analysis of the term. Gates, in The Signifyin(g) Monkey, provides background for such an analysis. Because his project is ultimately to derive an African-American theory of literary criticism, he touches on the appropriation of 'nigger' only briefly, asserting that a "political offensive" was mounted against the term by African-Americans through a black rhetorical strategy called Signifyin(g) (47). Gates, however, does not explain precisely how Signifyin(g) works in this case, except to suggest that it involves agnominatio (46). Thus 'nigger' becomes 'nigga', a word that differs from the racial slur but originates from and recalls it.2 Although Gates's commentary on the appropriation of 'nigger' amounts to little more than a sentence, much of his explication of the term Signifyin(g) implicitly applies to the co-optation of 'nigger'. The rhetorical analysis presented in this paper is a logical extension of Gates's initial linkage of the appropriation of 'nigger' with the rhetorical practice of Signifyin(g). The social baggage attached to 'nigga' assures that every use of the term is double-voiced in the Bakhtinian sense. More precisely, 'nigga' is a Bakhtinian parody of 'nigger'; the new connotation parodies or comments on the original because the new term carries with it the history of its pejorative use as well as the refashioned connotation of defiant group pride.3 This kind of rhetorical turn or critique is an example of the African-American rhetorical practice Gates identifies as Signifyin(g). Pinning down exactly what constitutes Signifyin(g) is difficult. Numerous black language scholars have commented on the expansiveness of the term.4 Gates argues that in its broadest sense, to Signify means to be "figurative," further noting that "to define it in practice is to define it through any number of its embedded tropes" (81).5 For our purposes it can be described as a rhetorical action that indirectly critiques another term or sign by revising it. Gates explains that, fundamentally, this revision and critique involve "repetition, with a signal difference" (51). Gates distinguishes the African-American term, 'Signifyin(g)', from the word 'signifying' by capitalizing the 'S' and bracketing the 'g' (46). It is helpful to think of the former term as 'Signifyin(g) on' (or critiquing) something whereas the latter word 'signifies' (or means) something but does not inherently involve a critique. Thus, to parody the motions of a police officer behind his or her back 'Signifies on' the officer and 'signifies' one's disrespect.6 Signifyin(g) is inherently a counter-puncher's strategy, an act of resistance against an oppressive force. Gates even goes so far as to call it the "slave's trope" (52). In Signifyin(g), the revised term, through its parodic double-voicedness, enters into a semantic loop with the original term; recollection of past oppressive usage must occur to fuel the term's new meaning. Figure 1 - Semantic Loop of Semantic Inversion and Agnominatio This semantic loop recalls what W.E. B. Dubois termed African-American double consciousness, a consciousness that yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (16-17) While 'nigga' recalls how blacks have been measured by the tape of the world, it also defies this estimation through ironic revision of the name. Although Dubois would criticize this pathway through the white term as a road to false consciousness, others might insist that since revision of the white term occurs through distinctly African-American rhetorical strategies, the revision is emblematic of an authentically African-American consciousness—which is a double consciousness. In this view the revision does not attempt to reconcile what DuBois calls the "two unreconciled strivings" of the black person as "an American and a Negro" but instead involves them in an endless interplay (17). The interplay of the two signs sustains an antagonistic stand toward the dominant white community through the polemical comment: "this is how whites see us but we are something more". 'Nigga', then, is "authentically black" speech because it recognizes and maintains the divide between black and white worlds. As Smitherman notes: [e]ncoded within the rhetoric of racial resistance, nigga is used to demarcate (Black) culturally rooted from (white) culturally assimilated African Americans. Niggaz are those Bloods (Blacks) who are down for Blackness and identify with the trials as well as triumphs of the Black experience… ("Chain") The defiance implied by the revision of the white slur is also an assertion of human subjectivity. Gates identifies a parallel strategy in African-American slave narratives. Referring to Frederick Douglass's famous chiasmus—"You have seen how a man became a slave, you will see how a slave became a man."—Gates asserts that "Douglass's major contribution to the slave narrative was to make chiasmus the central trope of slave narration, in which a slave-object writes himself or herself into a human subject through the act of writing" (172). By comparison, through the semantic inversion of 'nigger'/'nigga', dehumanized blacks speak themselves into human subjects through the act of speaking. This transfiguration conforms to what Gates terms "chiastic slaying" (66). His somewhat off-hand phrase is inspired by the African-American use of chiasmus, which is defined as, "a grammatical figure by which the order of words in one of two parallel clauses is inverted in the other" (Oxford English Dictionary qtd. in Grothe). Chiasmus is often represented as an ABBA pattern (so Douglass's chiasmus would be reduced to: (A) man - (B) slave - (B) slave - (A) man). In Gates's usage, chiastic slaying involves repetition and reversal but not necessarily a literal ABBA pattern of chiasmus. In the same vein, 'nigga' is a repetition of 'nigger' that reverses the position of African Americans (from objects to subjects). Analogously, 'nigger to nigga' can be conceived of as the inverted second clause of a chiastic statement like Douglass's 'man - slave - slave - man' in which personhood and agency are re-affirmed. This re-affirmation of humanity implicit in 'nigga' is not likely to be understood by many whites given, as Smitherman notes, that they often fail to recognize the semantic difference between 'nigger' and 'nigga'.7 Since whites are frequently unaware of the Signification of 'nigga', it is impossible for African Americans to kill (i.e. end) the white use of the racist term. In the context of Signification, chiastic slaying does not put an end to the idea Signified upon. In fact, Signification must be activated by what Gates calls the "absent presence" of the original term (48). The critique of racism and assertion of subjectivity implicit in the employment of 'nigga' is not aimed at white people or the elimination of their sign; it is aimed at a black audience that must survive in a continually racist environment. What, then, is the "slaying" of chiastic slaying? It must be seen as a refutation of the original term or sign. In the case of 'nigga', it is a rejection of the dehumanization implied by 'nigger' with the recognition that African Americans will still be continually subjected to this libel despite its refutation. Thus, the chiastic slaying of 'nigger' by 'nigga' requires a continual interplay or semantic loop between the two terms. The context of continuing racism, then, requires 'nigga' to recurrently signify on (i.e. assert the falsity of) the slur. The recurrent Signification can be thought of as a loop inscribed upon the linear chiastic pattern: Figure 2 - Semantic Loop Inscribed on the Chiastic PatternThe context of continuing racism is one factor that accounts for the value of semantic looping in African-American rhetoric. Since the semantic loops of African-American culture draw their strength from the oppression to which they react, they are continually useful. This kind of resistance does not attempt to overcome racism but instead draws African-American attention to it so blacks can survive it. The first step in this survival is to be aware, as DuBois might say, that blacks in America are perceived of as a "problem" (15). The Signification of 'nigga' also "keeps it real", by reminding African Americans of the harsh truth of racism and by continually enacting a refutation of racism through a complex of culturally familiar rhetorical strategies. In this respect, the appropriation of the white slur is, to borrow the words of Foucault, a culturally inspired "reverse discourse" aimed at responding to white oppression. The identification of semantic looping in this case opens up an array of other questions. How does semantic looping function in the appropriation of other epithets by other groups? (A few cases that may be worth investigating in addition to the previously mentioned 'queer', are 'dyke', 'girl'/'grrl' by young feminists and 'anorexia'/'ana' as well as 'bulimia'/'mia' by pro-eating-disorder advocates.) Do the cultural differences of various groups affect how semantic looping operates? What does semantic looping reveal about the struggle over authenticity or identity, especially with respect to gender, class and subculture? And lastly, how do groups respond to re-appropriations by dominant groups? (In particular I am thinking of the increasing use of 'nigga' by white American teenagers.) I hope others will find these questions worth pursuing. Notes 1. While Gates suggests that agnominatio is involved in the co-optation of 'nigger', he does not mention the term 'semantic inversion' at all (although he is obviously aware that Signifyin(g) often involves this rhetorical action). Gates's phrase, chiastic slaying, occurs only in the context of a general discussion of Signifyin(g). See 66 in Gates for his use of chiastic slaying. 2. Other English speakers including Australians and the English may find it difficult to distinguish between these spoken words and 'hear' them both as 'nigguh'. But to those from the United States the distinction is noticeable. 3. Gates identifies Bakhtin's notion of the double voiced word and his concept of narrative parody as relevant to African-American rhetoric. See 50, 110-13 and 131 in Gates. Bakhtin's most comprehensive discussion of double-voiced discourse can be found in 185-186, and 190-99. Bakhtin's distinction between parody and other types of discourse can be found in 193-99. 4. Gates lists the following as providing substantive definitions of Signifyin(g): H. Rap Brown, Roger D. Abrahams, Thomas Kochman, Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, Geneva Smitherman and Ralph Ellison (71). Gates considers Mitchell Kernan's data to be more representative than the others' and even she states that she could not get consensus from her informants regarding Signifyin(g) (Gates 80-81). 5. Gates has identified numerous rhetorical strategies that can be involved in Signifyin(g). See 52 in Gates for a complete list of these tropes. 6. I build on an example from Abrahams who states that "... it is signifying to make fun of a policeman by parodying his motions behind his back..." (52). 7. Smitherman notes that the semantic inversion of 'nigger' (or 'flippin the script' as it is known in the hip-hop world) "... is often misunderstood by European Americans and castigated by some African Americans" (Chain). Smitherman's comment suggests that the ability to discriminate between the two terms (as well as one's comfort level with the usage of 'nigga') is not racially monolithic. Whites who participate in hip-hop culture, for example, are likely to see the distinction between 'nigger' and 'nigga'. Some factors that seem likely to complicate any generalization about understanding and comfort level with 'nigga' are race, affinity for hip-hop, class, age and geographic location. References Abrahams, Roger D. Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia. Chicago: Aldine, 1970. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. Ed. and Trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999. DuBois, W.E. Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folk. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1961. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980. Grothe, Mardy. Chiasmus.com. Online. Internet. 9 Oct. 2001. Available <http://www.chiasmus.com/whatischiasmus.shtml>. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford U P, 1988. Smitherman, Geneva. "'The Chain Remain the Same'." Journal of Black Studies 28 (1997): n.pag. Online. Academic Search Elite. 10 May 2002. - - -. Black Talk. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Links http://www.chiasmus.com/whatischiasmus.shtml Citation reference for this article MLA Style Jacobs, Andrew T.. "Appropriating a Slur" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.4 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/semantic.php>. Chicago Style Jacobs, Andrew T., "Appropriating a Slur" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 4 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/semantic.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Jacobs, Andrew T.. (2002) Appropriating a Slur. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(4). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0208/semantic.php> ([your date of access]).

Autumn is not only a gloriously colourful time of the year, it is a time when a plethora of children’s book related events and awards take place. Just see what is happening in the next few months:IBBY: “Silent Books: Final Destination Lampedusa” travelling exhibit In response to the international refugee crisis that began last year, the Italian arm of the International Board on Books for Young People has launched a travelling picture-book exhibit to support the first children’s library on the island of Lampedusa, Italy where many African and Middle Eastern refugees are landing. After stops in Italy, Mexico, and Austria, the exhibit is currently touring Canada. It premiered in Edmonton at the Stanley A. Milner Library in August. Next are three Vancouver locations: UBC Irving Barber Learning Centre (Oct. 1 to 23), Vancouver Public Library central branch (Oct. 8 to 18), and the Italian Cultural Centre (Oct. 10 to 22). Then the North York Central Library in Toronto from Nov. 2 to Dec 11. Recognizing Lampedusa island’s cultural diversity, the exhibit comprises exclusively wordless picture books from 23 countries, including three from Canada:“Hocus Pocus” by Sylvie Desrosiers & Rémy Simard’s (Kids Can Press), “Ben’s Big Dig” by Daniel Wakeman and Dirk van Stralen’s(Orca Book Publishers)“Ben’s Bunny Trouble” also by Wakeman and van Stralen (Orca Book Publishers). Other books are drawn from an honour list selected by a jury of experts from the 2015 Bologna Children’s Book Fair including Ajubel’s “Robinson Crusoe” (Spain), Ara Jo’s “The Rocket Boy”(Korea), and Madalena Matoso’s “Todos Fazemos Tudo” (Switzerland), among others. The full catalogue can be viewed online.TD Canadian Children’s Book Week.Next year’s TD Canadian Children’s Book Week will take place from May 7-14, 2016. Thirty Canadian children’s authors, illustrators and storytellers will be touring across Canada visiting schools, libraries, bookstores and community centres. Visit the TD Book Week site (www.bookweek.ca) to find out who will be touring in your area and the types of readings and workshops they will be giving. If your school or library is interested in hosting a Book Week visitor, you can apply online starting in mid-October.Shakespeare Selfie CBC Books will once again be running the Shakespeare Selfie writing challenge in April 2016. Shakespeare took selfies all the time but instead of a camera, he used a quill. And instead of calling them "selfies," they were called "soliloquies."The challenge: Write a modern-day soliloquy or monologue by a Shakespearean character based on a prominent news, pop culture or current affairs event from the last year (April 2015-April 2016). It can be in iambic pentameter or modern syntax with a word count from 200 to 400 words. There are two age categories: Grades 7-9 and 10-12. Details at: http://www.cbc.ca/books/2015/10/the-2016-shakespeare-selfie-writing-challenge-for-students.html Awards:The winners of this year’s Canadian Jewish Literary Awards, celebrating Jewish literature and culture in Canada, have been announced. Amongst the nine awards is one for Youth Literature which was awarded to Suri Rosen for “Playing with Matches” (ECW Press). See all the award winners here: http://www.cjlawards.ca/.The Canadian Children's Book Centre administers several awards including the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, the Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction. This year’s winners will be announced on November 18, 2015. http://www.bookcentre.ca/awardThe Fitzhenry Family Foundation has revealed the winners of its Lane Anderson Awards for the best Canadian science books published in the previous year. Selections are made based on a title’s pertinence to science in today’s world and the author’s ability to relate scientific issues to everyday life. Prolific Halifax kids’ science writer L.E. Carmichael was awarded the YA prize for “Fuzzy Forensics: DNA Fingerprinting Gets Wild” (Ashby-BP Publishing), about using forensic science to fight crimes against animals. Uxbridge, Ontario–based environmental journalist Stephen Leahy received the adult prize for “Your Water Footprint” (Firefly Books), which examines human usage of the valuable natural resource. http://laneandersonaward.ca/The Edmonton Public Library has named Sigmund Brouwer (author and Rock & Roll Literacy Show host) as the winner (by public vote) of Alberta Reader’s Choice Award. Sigmund’s “Thief of Glory” (WaterBrook Press) is about a young boy trying to take care of his family in the aftermath of the 1942 Japanese Imperialist invasion of the Southeast Pacific. The prize awards $10,000 to an Alberta-based author of a work of excellent fiction or narrative non-fiction. http://www.epl.ca/alberta-readers-choiceHarperCollins Canada, the Cooke Agency, and the University of British Columbia have announced the shortlist of the annual HarperCollins Publishers/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction awarded to students and alumni of UBC’s creative writing program, and offers the winner literary representation by the Cooke Agency and a publishing contract with HarperCollins Canada.“Between the Wind and Us” by Iranian-Canadian writer Nazanine Hozar, the story of a young abandoned girl set during the political unrest of 1953–1979 Iran.“Learning to Breathe” by B.C.-based Janice Lynn Mather, a young adult novel about a Caribbean teenager’s struggle to establish herself in a new city and home life.“At The Top of the Wall, Alight” by Sudbury, Ontario, author Natalie Morrill, which follows a Viennese Jew separated from his family during the Second World War. An early version of this novel was previously nominated for the award.Novelist and University of Guelph writing professor, Thomas King, and L.A.-based author, graphic novelist, and musician, Cecil Castellucci, have been named winners of this year’s Sunburst Awards for excellence in Canadian literature of the fantastic. Castellucci won in the YA category for “Tin Star” (Roaring Brook/Raincoast), the first novel in a planned series about a teenager who struggles to survive parent-less in a space station where she is the only human, and which played scene to a brutal assault that haunts her memory. King won in the adult category for his novel “The Back of the Turtle” (HarperCollins Canada), for which he also received a Copper Cylinder Award from the Sunburst Society last week. The book follows a First Nations scientist who finds himself torn after he’s sent to clean up the ecological mess his company has left on the reserve his family grew up on.Be sure to save October 28th on your calendar for the GG book awards announcement. Of course, “GG” stands for Governor-General. The short lists can be viewed here:http://ggbooks.ca/books/. There are categories in both English and French for both children’s text and illustration books.Online ResourcesPodcast: Yegs and Bacon: Episode 22: the full audio from our recent Indigenous Representation in Popular Culture panel. In the audio, you’ll be hearing from (in order of first vocal appearance) Brandon, who introduces the panelists, James Leask, Richard Van Camp, Kelly Mellings, and Patti Laboucane-Benson. Recorded on Monday, September 28th, 2015. http://variantedmonton.com/category/yegs-and-bacon/European Picture Book Collection: The EPBC was designed to help pupils to find out more about their European neighbours through reading the visual narratives of carefully chosen picture books. Here you can find out about how the project began, the theoretical papers that have been presented on European children's literature, and how the materials were initially used in schools. http://www.ncrcl.ac.uk/epbc/EN/index.aspMore next time around,Yours in stories, Gail de VosGail de Vos is an adjunct professor who teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, young adult literature, and comic books & graphic novels at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta. She is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. Gail is also a professional storyteller who has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.

Hoodoo is an ethnomedical, natural healing method of magical rituals derived from West and Central African traditions, elements of Christianity, Native American folklore and African-American slavery. Rootlore applies herbs, roots, minerals, implements and animal part charms for ritual and personal use as intercessory curios that petition supernatural help and flaunt superstition. Grigri is a hoodoo object believed to protect the wearer from evil. Belief and protection associated with personal hoodoo may be appreciated with concepts in ritual healing, rootlore and meaningful experiences with respect to placebo effects. The study provides a narrative analysis of elements of ritual preparation of a chicken feet Grigri within a shared space with extended family members. In a personal account, a successful attempt of curing a conflict by unconventional means is reported. Ideas about extraordinary experiences outside traditional western medicine arise. Thoughts about the efficacy of taboo ritual material as complementary to western medicine speak to needing more innovative directions in psychotherapy.

The first chapter provides a synopsis of Panama’s history with emphasis on the development of nationalist sentiment and musical nationalism. The author opens this chapter by detailing the rise of nineteenth-century progressive liberalism and the construction of the Panama Canal, and then goes on to trace the growth of mid-twentieth century xenophobic sentiment directed not only toward US military personnel, but also toward Panamanians of African descent. The chapter goes on to examine Panama’s folkloric project as the author introduces what will become one of the central themes of the book: that what may seem to be an irreconcilable clash of values between modern-sounding música típica versus traditional lifeways celebrated by Panamanian intellectuals, in fact often turned out to be mutually reinforcing phenomena. This turn of events, the author argues, challenges rigid bottom-up/top-down analyses of cultural nationalism and reveals the complex realities of the musical and social lives of popular musicians. The chapter concludes with a review of the revolutionary populism of the 1960s.