Continuity, Discontinuity, Invention, Reinvention of African Aesthetics or Cultural Memory and Change

Abstract

The question of aesthetics, memory, and changes in Africa are raised from several perspectives. A few European scholars alleged Africa did not have a past and could not produce aesthetics, material or immaterial resources to share with the world, for its past was empty, and a-historical. Unfortunately, these scholars’ arguments influenced history, justified colonization, slavery, and their multidimensional violence. This paper gives a quick survey of these moments and underlines false accusations against Africa. The question of aesthetics, memory, and changes in Africa are raised from several perspectives. A few European scholars alleged Africa did not have a past and could not produce aesthetics, material or immaterial resources to share with the world, for its past was empty, and a-historical. Unfortunately, these scholars’ arguments influenced history, justified colonization, slavery, and their multidimensional violence. This paper gives a quick survey of these moments and underlines false accusations against Africa. Contributions from scholars from the South such as Mudimbe, Mbembe, Bhabha, and Appadurai attested spectacular results combining findings from archaeologists, historians, art historians, anthropologists, linguists, culturalists, musicologists, and philosophers in interdisciplinary studies. Africa has always been a vibrant cultural continent that colonization and slavery defiled. Borrowing Apter’s question about “what should be done” concerning all findings on African aesthetics and history, the text invites scholars to push ahead in their quest of communications, comparisons, originalities drawn from the distant African past, adapted to local, global, Diaspora’s dynamics, and glocal perspectives. It is time to stop accusations and complaints on the past for turning to documented global visibility.