There is a culturally significant way of being Yoruba that is expressed through dress, greetings, and celebrations-no matter where in the world they take place. Adeleke Adek documents Yoruba patterns of behavior and articulates a philosophy of how to be Yoruba in this innovative study. As he focuses on historical writings, Ifa divination practices, the use of proverbs in contemporary speech, photography, gendered ideas of dressing well, and the formalities of ceremony and speech at celebratory occasions, Adeeko contends that being Yoruba is indeed an art and Yoruba-ness is a dynamic phenomenon that responds to cultural shifts as Yoruba people inhabit an increasingly globalized world.

About the Author

Adeleke Adeek is Humanities Distinguished Professor in the English and African American and African Studies departments at Ohio State University. He is the author of Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature and The Slave's Rebellion: Literature, History, Orature (IUP).

Reviews

Arts of Being Yoruba is timely and strategic. It is a commendable output, which makes pronouncements that further rekindles hope and sustained interest in African cultural studies generally.

* African Studies Quarterly *

In uniting various themes and topics, the book creates a tool and methodology to rethink interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, hybridity, and modernity. Recommended.

* Choice *

Arts of Being Yoruba is a needed contribution to Yoruba studies and a welcome rejoinder to a more culturally essentialist understanding of what it means to be - or not be - Yoruba.

* Journal of Modern African Studies *

This book will remain an unparalleled prestigious excavation of the very best in Yoruba artistic, literary, cultural, and philosophical studies for many years to come. It belongs in every Yoruba household as well as in the archives of Yoruba social and cultural history.

* Research in African Literature *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253026491
Author Adeleke Adeeko
Format Paperback
Page Count 226
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press