Facing South to Africa: Toward an Afrocentric Critical Orientation

by Molefi Kete Asante author of Revolutionary Pedagogy: Primer for Teachers of Black Children

Overview

Facing South to Africa is a bold synthesis of the ideas that have made Afrocentric theorists the leading voices of the African renaissance. Written from the vantage point of the philosophical and political discourse that emerged over the past twenty-five years, this is a highly readable and accessible introduction to African social and cultural criticism. Molefi Kete Asante engages in the practice of critical thinking by raising fundamental questions about how Africans view themselves and the world. Tackling the themes of culture, education, social sciences, the university, politics, African unity, and the prospects for peace in Africa, Facing South to Africa is a fresh, daring, and popularizing synthesis of the best critical thought on the issues of modern knowledge. Asante’s plan is to reorient our thinking on Africa by asking questions of Africa and Africans rather than imposing preconceived, external ideas on African issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739196717
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/20/2014
Series:	Critical Africana Studies
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	158
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Molefi Kete Asante is professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Temple University. He is also president of Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies and guest professor at Zhejiang University and Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Afrocentricity and Culture Chapter Two: African Maat and Human Communication Chapter Three: The Ordeal of Good Afrocentric Speech Chapter Four: Afrocentricity and Education Chapter Five: Imagining New Social Sciences Chapter Six: The Philosophical Basis for an African University Chapter Seven: Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi’s Vision of Africa Chapter Eight: Toward a Union of African States Chapter Nine: Thabo Mbeki and an Afrocentric Africa Chapter Ten: Western Media and the Falsification of Africa Chapter Eleven: Threats to African Peace and The Face of Solutions, UN Speech

Editorial Reviews

Molefi Kete Asante uncovers and assesses new and historical contours of world relationships involving Africa and Europe. He offers a body of knowledge and analytical tools to give new generations of Africans the ability to infuse the contemporary world with standards of ethics and justice that can contemplate diversity and non-hierarchical plurality without sacrificing truth or wisdom. This book is a must for any person sincerely engaged in the effort to build a better world through dialogue and cross-cultural understanding.

Elisa Larkin Nascimento

Molefi Kete Asante's brilliant collection of essays has arrived just in time to rescue a generation of African intelligentsia numbed into a Pax-Americana ideology. Asante's critical examination of Eurocentric triumphalism is balanced with Maatic alternatives toward life in general and agency in particular. The book disintegrates contemporary ideological breeds guilty of lulling all and sundry intellectuals into paralyses of analyses. The essays presented deftly expose debilitating notions from the so-called right and left polemicists, while presenting human alternatives to imperialist intrigue. Asante gives the update of the Afrocentric praxis and paradigm that many readers have expected and desired. That update contains an 'up south vantage' and blooms globally with homage to Pan-African agency.

D. Zizwe Poe

Gearing his book primarily to scholars of Afrocentricity theory, Asante, the architect of Afrocentricity, provides perspectives on numerous topics and theories through the Afrocentric lens. He briefly explains Afrocentricity’s position on theories, from structuralism and postmodernism to negritude, Africology, and kawaida (a theory proposed by Maulana Karenga in the 1970s). Asante also looks at immigration, identity, black education, a united Africa, and the various conflicts impacting Africa today.. .. [T]he book...provide[s] important considerations of existing debates, especially around Pan-African unity, and deepens understanding of critical issues for scholars of Afrocentricity. Summing Up:. .. [For] scholars.

CHOICE

Gearing his book primarily to scholars of Afrocentricity theory, Asante, the architect of Afrocentricity, provides perspectives on numerous topics and theories through the Afrocentric lens. He briefly explains Afrocentricity’s position on theories, from structuralism and postmodernism to negritude, Africology, and kawaida (a theory proposed by Maulana Karenga in the 1970s). Asante also looks at immigration, identity, black education, a united Africa, and the various conflicts impacting Africa today. . . . [T]he book...provide[s] important considerations of existing debates, especially around Pan-African unity, and deepens understanding of critical issues for scholars of Afrocentricity. Summing Up: . . . [For] scholars.

Choice

In what could be considered his magnum opus, Asante delivers with expected clarity, force and illumination. His discussion of African intellectual agency is in perfect alignment with his long standing commitment to the well-being of African descended people worldwide. Once again, Asante rescues the reality of Africa from the clutches of anti-egalitarian historiography and delivers a text quite worthy of the academy’s consideration on every level.

Michael Tillotson

Gearing his book primarily to scholars of Afrocentricity theory, Asante, the architect of Afrocentricity, provides perspectives on numerous topics and theories through the Afrocentric lens. He briefly explains Afrocentricity’s position on theories, from structuralism and postmodernism to negritude, Africology, and kawaida (a theory proposed by Maulana Karenga in the 1970s). Asante also looks at immigration, identity, black education, a united Africa, and the various conflicts impacting Africa today.. .. [T]he book...provide[s] important considerations of existing debates, especially around Pan-African unity, and deepens understanding of critical issues for scholars of Afrocentricity. Summing Up:. .. [For] scholars.

Choice Reviews