Harvard Divinity Bulletin 41, 2&3 (Summer/Autumn 2013)

Harvard Divinity Bulletin 41, 2&3 is devoted to the religions of Africa and its diaspora. Visit http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news-events/harvard-divinity-bulletin on ‘the two-way traffic of the Black Atlantic’: ‘ The contents of this current Bulletin bring home to us how much of Africa survived the Middle Passage and the centuries of degradation that followed. Though we will be forever haunted by the millions of lives destroyed in the process of creating a New World for a privileged few, significant strains in our traditions of music-making, preaching, divinatory and healing practices are traceable to West and Central Africa. Indeed, it is not far-fetched to claim that the Euro-American world is indebted to Africa for its very existence. Yet, while Africa’s vital presence is still felt in contemporary America, so the music, religion, and popular culture that flourished on this side of the Atlantic has found its way back to whence it came, finding expression in the Afropop, Rap, and Reggae you hear on the streets of Freetown, or the “jazz cosmopolitanism” of Accra’ (Michael Jackson’s introduction). It also has an important article by Jacob K. Olupona, and another (on divination) by Phlip M. Peek, two more articles, reviews of books, a documentary film, and Ethiopian liturgical music, and three poems.