Imagining the Past, Remembering the Future

Forms of Knowledge in the Afro-Brazilian Diaspora

Isis Barra Costa (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

440 Seiten

2026
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
9780231212632 (ISBN)

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Over the centuries, from the transatlantic slave trade to voluntary mass migrations through the digital era, African cultural practices have taken root and transformed in the Americas. Even though Afro-Brazilians make up a large share of the global Black diaspora, and Brazilian culture in turn has been deeply shaped by African influences, their particular contributions remain overlooked.

Imagining the Past, Remembering the Future investigates the interlinked art, history, religion, philosophy, and cosmology of oral traditions across the Afro-Brazilian diaspora, arguing that these varied cultural expressions together constitute distinctive forms of knowledge. Through case studies of sacred and secular performances, Isis Barra Costa shows how Afro-Brazilian concepts and practices preserve and renew an ever-changing diasporic philosophy. Ranging across parades of Black royal courts, Carnaval performing groups, oracular literature, “spirit-dictated” novels, and many other forms, she illuminates the survival and transformation of African cosmologies, epistemologies, and poetics in the Americas. Foregrounding oral narratives, Barra Costa sheds light on the nonhegemonic protagonists and canons of the Black Atlantic: the spaces and beings, kingdoms and heroes, philosophers and historians that orient Afro-Brazilian memory and imagination. By tracing forms of knowledge across the global African diaspora, this deeply interdisciplinary book reveals the transformative potential of Afro-Brazilian philosophical paradigms.

Isis Barra Costa is assistant professor of contemporary Brazilian cultural and literary studies at the Ohio State University.

Acknowledgments
Road Opener: Òsanyìn’s Bird: The Triumph of the Small
Introduction: Entering Other Forests
Part I. The Euro-Afro-Brazilian Archive: European Civilization in Brazil
1. Visual Art Images: “I See . . . I Narrate. But What Is It That I Am Seeing?”
2. History: A Gold Medal for the Best Story
3. Literature: Heroes, Monsters, Giants, and the Canon
4. Poetics: Two Giants and Two Prophecies
5. Social Sciences: Three Founding Moments of Euro-Afro-Brazilian Studies (Separating the Wheat from the Chaff)
6. Law: Peace Without a Voice Is Not Harmony
Part II. The Kongo-Angola-Yoruba-Ewe-Brazilian Archive: African Civilizations in Brazil
7. Mundiongo: Ancestral Languages: Entering Other Forests
8. Aruanda: Ancestral Geographies: A Map to Aruanda and Other Realms
9. Ìtàn: Ancestral Genealogies: Obatala Came Before Us
Final Considerations: Dikenga and Opón Ifa: Ancestral Times and Technologies
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	17.2.2026
Reihe/Serie	Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 235 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-13	9780231212632 / 9780231212632
Zustand	Neuware