This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

For years Black women’s subjectivity in the use of their bodies and movements has been overshadowed or completely erased by dominant hegemonic systems that created its own narrative of Black women, their bodies, and their movement. This thesis works to acknowledge and analyze the dialogic relationship among the narratives of Black women, Black women’s performances of their “theories of the flesh” through dance as well as their everyday activities, and the race, gender, and class conditions that inform said “theories of the flesh.” During football season, everyone in the African-American community of Jackson, Mississippi is looking at and talking about the dance company, the Prancing JSettes. There are audience members who critique their movements and costumes and there are those who view the group as a vital part of the community. Either way every audience member is captivated by the J-Settes because their cultural history is depicted by the women’s performance. How does this work? How is the Prancing J-Sette image constructed and by whom, and why and how does it persist? These are the questions I ask to examine the gender, class, and racial relations that are inscribed upon the movements of Black women in the African Diaspora. For a group whose African ancestors viewed dance as very spiritual, with such activities as the ring shout, it is interesting to note the ambivalence that surrounds the public dancing body in Jackson, Mississippi. While some Jacksonians view the female body in the public sphere with a Protestant Christian lens, they also enjoy the Africana aesthetics and aggressive energy of the J-Settes’ performances. Also, while the J-Settes buck their society’s hegemonic system of propriety, they also comply with some of these standards in their performance. I examine this ambivalence through the discourses of critical race theory, Black feminism, the social significance of African Diaspora dance conventions and HBCUs, and the classed, racial, and gendered power relations in the African Diaspora. I argue that the stories about the Prancing J-Settes can be expanded to present a genealogy and present state of contradictory values and issues of visibility affecting all Black women.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

<p> My dissertation contends that diaspora, perhaps the most visible spatial paradigm for theorizing black constructions of identity and self, is inherently limited by the historical conditions of its rise as well as the preoccupations with which it has been most closely associated. I propose that we expand our theoretico-spatio terms for constructions of blackness to include the space of the home, the space of the plantation and the space of the prison (what I call the space of justice). These three spaces point to literary themes, characters, and beliefs that the space of diaspora alone does not explain. Each chapter analyzes the work of three or four writers from the United States, Brazil and Mozambique. These writers include: Paulina Chiziane, Concei&ccedil;&atilde;o Evaristo, Octavia E. Butler, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Bernice McFadden, Wanda Coleman, Ifa Bayeza and Asha Bandele. </p>

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss, 2005

No description available.

<p> Maroon communities are often portrayed as renegade groups of Africans living within or on the fringes of some of the more popular slave societies such as Jamaica, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Suriname, or Brazil, whose purpose or goals in their existence was never to strive towards universal emancipation of the African lot, and whose resistance and radicalism, if occurring during the Age of Revolution (i.e. Haiti), is often attributed to European influences during that era. This socio-cultural and political history about a lesser known group of maroons in Dominica challenges the preconceived notions of African maroonage and resistance, and is original in four ways: One, this dissertation demonstrates that the maroons of Dominica who lived in the interior of the island worked with the enslaved population on plantations on several occasions to overthrow the British colonial government in an attempt to assist their African brethren in freedom; Secondly, this work highlights the African origins of the spiritual and political philosophies, particularly the lesser credited Igbo, who comprised of a significant portion of Africans in Dominica, are what guided their anti-slavery and anti-colonial resistance; Thirdly, the maroons and enslaved populations, who demonstrated alliances with one another in Dominica during the 1790s and early nineteenth century were not influenced by French Revolutionary ideals, but were pursued for an alliance, and the former, in particular, often rejected alliances with French Revolutionary sympathizers; Lastly, this dissertation takes the maroons of Dominica outside the confines of a national history and connects it to the greater African Diaspora.</p>

In January 2019, Ghana launched its Year of Return program to mark 400 years since the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia. The year-long event was described as a spiritual birth right journey for members of the Black diaspora and aimed to boost tourism and migration to the country by posing Ghana as a key destination for the Black diaspora and African Americans in particular. As the Ghanaian state encourages the diaspora to travel and migrate to Ghana to help boost its economy, Ghanaian citizens are looking for opportunities to migrate out of Ghana for better education and employment opportunities. Considering this dichotomy, this thesis explores the differing and often contrasting mobilities apparent in the Black diaspora through the context of the Year of Return program. It is informed by fieldwork conducted via information and communication technologies (ICTs) over the COVID-19 pandemic through participant observation, interviews, and media analysis. This thesis first explores how Ghana's historical relationship with the Black diaspora laid the groundwork for the success of the Year of Return. It then explores how different understandings of Blackness were used by the Ghanaian state to promote connections across the Black diaspora. Finally, it focuses on the differing mobilities characterizing the phenomenon of return to Ghana to inquire into the state of global Black mobility.

No description available.