Description

Week 6: Common Elements in African Cosmology

• The Primeval Water, the Life-Force, the Void and Continuum
• Transmission of the Life-Force
• The Four Primordial Elements/Ancestors
• Chaos and Order
• Concert of Opposites
• Divine Intelligence/Logos/Word

Reading: Kamalu, C. (1998). Person, Divinity and Nature. London: Karnak House., pp. 131-144.

Supplementary Text(s): Diop, C. A. (1989). The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: the domains of patriarchy and of matriarchy in classical antiquity. London: Karnak House., pp. 47-102.

Carruthers, J. H. (1995). Mdw Nt̲r. London: Karnak House., pp. 39-88; 113-178.

Martin, D. (2008). Maat and Order in African Cosmology: A Conceptual Tool for Understanding Indigenous Knowledge. Journal of Black Studies, 38(6), 951-967. doi:10.2307/40035033