The purpose of this study is to provide an Afrocentric analysis of the ways in which Du Bois approaches African history in his text The World and Africa. The study contextualizes the experiences that shaped Du Bois’ thinking about Africa. This includes commentary on his college years as well as the experiences that continued to shape his opinions near the end of his life. Highlighted in this study is Du Bois’ Eurocentric approaches to history in regard to African people. The significance of focusing on the ideologies of Du Bois through this text is the fact that Du Bois is considered perhaps the most influential African American intellectual of the twentieth century. Thus, my aim is to provide an analysis of The World and Africa that is useful in illustrating the Eurocentric entrapments in regard to Africa and African people that have plagued even our most brilliant intellectuals. Secondly, Du Bois’ analysis of African history is limited by his concept of race or ethnicity being narrowed to general phenotypes. As such, Du Bois, though perhaps more nuanced in his approach to what defines a race than many in his day, often makes superficial and sometimes erroneous claims about what constitutes African people. African culture, though considerably discussed in the text, becomes however ancillary to the basis of Du Bois’ contentions about the past greatness of African people. My analysis centers the Afrocentric approach to African cultural cosmology and ontology as basis of my critique of Du Bois’ text. Further, as an example of how Du Bois could have strengthened his arguments for Pan-African unity using culture as a basis, I have created and utilized a methodology entitled African World Antecedent Methodology and provided within this study some minor examples of the overlapping cultural patterns of African Americans within the African cultural-historical matrix. / African American Studies

This thesis examines and initiates the process of filling a gap in the academic study of Orisha Music, a subfield of Africana Religions. Despite the integral role that akpons – the song leaders – play during Lucumi drumming ceremonies, most of the major works focus on drums and/or drumming, while relegating akpons to little more than footnotes in them. This work is approached from the perspective of a scholar-practitioner and an apprenticing musician in the Lucumi tradition to consider who these song leaders are to their communities. After reviewing the aforementioned texts and analyzing the context in which akpons are situated, this thesis offers a preliminary treatise on how exactly akpons contribute to drumming ceremonies and Lucumi practice. / Religion

This thesis seeks to highlight the legacy of artist Dox Thrash as singular and crucial to Philadelphia’s historical narrative. This legacy includes not only his artwork, but the impact he made on the community around him, as well as the physical structure of his home on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. By examining the great oeuvre of Thrash’s artwork, this thesis argues that it is in need of recognition beyond what it has already received: not only because of the merit of the work, but because of the rarity of his perspective. Thrash depicted African American life in America with dignity and intimacy as a Black man at a time when the only mainstream representations currently circulating were in the form of caricatures and other insensitive portrayals by white artists. His work acts as a keystone to contextualize the Black experience in Philadelphia during the Jazz Era, even though the connection to that time has been seemingly under attack in this city.Sharswood, the neighborhood where Dox Thrash lived, was once a center of Black life, but has been dismantled and degraded by the effects of redlining. The state of his derelict home is emblematic of this, as it currently is marked with a historical placard from the city but did not have any preservation done to the structure. That is until the Dox Thrash House Project, a group of passionate volunteers, began to fundraise and raise awareness to save Thrash’s home. The work being done by the Dox Thrash House Project inspired this thesis as they have fought to bring Thrash’s home back to life through preservation. This thesis tackles the contextualization of the treatment of Thrash’s legacy within the current landscape of both art history and preservation in Philadelphia. / Art History / This thesis contains supplemental material that was not uploaded due to copyright restrictions. If you need to access the material, please contact the author directly. Accompanied by 1 PDF file: MalandraMyers_temple_0225M_171/List-of-figures.pdf

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African American women have been absent from much of the writing on consumption and the making of modernity. This dissertation responds to these absences, using dress, a highly visible form of consumption, to examine how African American women in Cleveland, Ohio experienced modernity through the culture of consumption from 1890-1940, in the context of urbanization, migration, and the Great Depression.;In looking at African American women's dress during this period, this dissertation will explore the clothed body not simply as a theoretical abstraction, but part of a lived experience in which production and consumption are not mutually exclusive. This will help illuminate the ability of African American women to find a sense of affirmation within oppressive systems.;African American women in Cleveland seized on the opportunities provided by dress and its related consumption to construct a modern black female identity that simultaneously accepted and contested dominant culture's notions of femininity. However, African American women were not a monolithic group, so these constructions differed across geographic origins, class, and religious lines. African American's women's consumption also provided them with avenues for developing a sense of community that led to the creation of autonomous black spaces centered around dress and consumption. These spaces were essential to the self-definition and self-sufficiency that defined the New Negro.

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