Art as Sanctuary: Conjuring an Africana Aesthetic

by Michael D Harris, Dianne M Stewart (Editor), Theophus H Smith (Editor), Richard J Powell (Foreword by)

Overview

In Art as Sanctuary, Michael D. Harris considers literal and metaphorical uses of sanctuary in the Black experience and African diaspora art, including locales of spiritual expression, self-renewal, and cultural celebration. Harris offers an alternative framework to the Duboisian philosophy of double consciousness, pushing the boundaries of Africana aesthetic analysis by exploring the cultural signifiers embedded consciously or unconsciously in African diaspora art. Within these works, he reveals how these cultural cues speak to the vibrancy of African American life. While acknowledging the presence of the white observer’s gaze, Harris wishes to relieve the black interior from the panoptic assumptions of that gaze and its disciplines. Art as Sanctuary provides innovative pathways to understand African American visual culture and music as autobiographies of cultural identity and experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478017691
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	01/06/2026
Series:	Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Michael D. Harris (1948–2022) was an artist, curator, scholar, and author of Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation.

Dianne M. Stewart is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University.

Theophus H. Smith is Emeritus Associate Professor of Religion at Emory University.

Richard J. Powell is John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art & Art History at Duke Universityand editor of Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, published by Duke UniversityPress.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations  vi
Foreword / Richard J. Powell  ix
Editors’ Introduction. Michael D. Harris: Cultural Theorist of Africana Identity, Art, and Spirituality / Dianne M. Stewart and Theophus H. Smith  xvii
Introduction. Sanctuary and the Black Interior  1
1. The Moan: Calling Forth Culture  27
2. Etymologies and Black Love  50
3. From The Banjo Lesson to The Piano Lesson: Reclaiming the Song  70
4. Fish Fry Music: A Blues Aesthetic  87
5. Gospel, Tongues, and Bearing Witness  114
6. Undone: Bottle Trees, Charms, and Flashing Spirits  132
7. Talking in Tongues: Revisiting/Reflecting Kara Walker  156
Conclusion. Bebop Ghosts and Freedom Songs  174
Notes  191
Bibliography  213
Index

Editorial Reviews

In Art as Sanctuary, Michael Harris revisits a selection of significant works by African American artists and reframes them in ways that expand their meaning through new, globally focused contextualizations. In highlighting the importance of art as both shelter and balm he offers us imaginative refuge in today’s world.”—Kellie Jones, author of, South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s

From the Publisher