Molefi Kete Asante - distinguished scholar best known for creating the discipline of Black Studies

Molefi Kete Asante

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Dr. Molefi Kete Asante is Professor, Department of African American Studies at Temple University. Considered by his peers to be one of the most distinguished contemporary scholars, Asante has published over 65 books.

Asante was born in Valdosta, Ga., one of sixteen children. He is a poet, dramatist, and a painter. His work on African culture and philosophy has been cited by journals such as the Journal of Black Studies, Journal of Communication, American Scholar, Daedalus, Western Journal of Black Studies, and Africaological Perspectives. The Utne Reader called him one of the “100 Leading Thinkers” in America and Asante was recommended in a survey as one of the 25 influential African male leaders of the last two hundred years. In 2001, Transition Magazine said “Asante may be the most important professor in Black America.” He has appeared on Nightline, Nighttalk, BET, Macnell Lehrer News Hour, Today Show, the Tony Brown Show, Night Watch, Like It Is and 60 Minutes. In 2002 he received the distinguished Douglas Ehninger Award for Rhetorical Scholarship from the National Communication Association. The African Union cited him as one of the twelve top scholars of African descent when it invited him to give one of the keynote addresses at the Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora in Dakar in 2004. He was inducted into the Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University in 2004.

The History of Africa
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Paperback: 397 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (April 18, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0415771390

This book provides a wide-ranging history of Africa from earliest prehistory to the present day using the cultural, social, political, and economic lenses of Africa as instruments to illuminate the ordinary lives of Africans. The result is a fresh new survey that includes a wealth of indigenous ideas, African concepts, and traditional outlooks that have escaped the writing of African history in the West.

This straight forward, illustrated and factual text allows the reader to access the major developments, personalities and events on the African continent. Written by a world expert in African history, this ground breaking survey is an indispensable guide.

Handbook of Black Studies
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by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante and Dr. Maulana Karenga

Hardcover: 472 pages
Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc (November 10, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0761928405

The Handbook of Black Studies is the first resource to bring together research and scholarship in the field of African-American studies in one volume. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Maulana Karenga, along with a pre-eminent group of contributors, examine various aspects of the field of Black Studies. Organized into three parts, this Handbook explores historical and cultural foundations, philosophical and conceptual bases, and critical and analytical concepts.

	Presents Historical and Cultural Foundations: More than a chronicle of black culture or black people, this volume examines the emergence and maturity of the Black Studies field. Designed to be the principal reference work for the state of the field in African American Studies, this handbook covers the intent, function, and scope of the field with some suggestions about its future directions.
	Explores Philosophical and Conceptual Bases: Numerous theoretical and methodological adventures are examined, as well as research practices among scholars. A comprehensive, Pan-African approach to the field is provided as the contributions to this volume are not limited to discussing one area of the African world.
	Addresses Critical and Analytical Concepts: Researchers demonstrating intellectual rigor through unique and interesting projects are contributors to this volume. Black Studies is portrayed in a world context, not an "ethnic" volume, but a resource dealing with an important modern discipline whose practitioners and interests cross many borders.

Intended Audience: Perfect resource for any academic library; as well as graduate students and researchers seeking to ascertain the current state of the research in African American Studies

Race, Rhetoric & Identity: The Architecton Of Soul
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Hardcover: 249 pages
Publisher: Humanity Books (October 8, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591023181

In this new collection of insightful essays, the most prolific contemporary African American intellectual and the leader of the Afrocentric school of thought turns his critical attention to the many ways in which modes of communication in American culture have created a dehumanizing African American identity. Asante examines a wide range of cultural phenomena that continue to reflect underlying racial problems.

The Painful Demise of Eurocentricism
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Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Africa World Press (February 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0865437432

Book Description
Dr. Asante combines cultural studies, linguistics, historiography, Kementology, and Africology in this brilliant response to the critics of Afrocentricity. He demonstrates that the principal problem with the critics of Afrocentrics is their disbelief in the agency of Africans ¡V that is the ability of Africans to create society, community, culture and civilization. Asante challenges the basic arguments of the critics and reiterates the correctness of the Afrocentric vision for the African world.
In a successful balance of polemics and analysis, the author engages Stephen Howe, Mary Lefkowitz, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and others, with wit and intelligence. The book is useful for the readers interested in the general studies of ancient Africa as well as the continuing discourse around the Afrocentric idea.

From the Back Cover
"Molefi Asante, the founding and preeminent theorist of Afrocentricity, is one of the most important intellectuals at work today. This work continues his tradition of combining an extraordinary intellectual range with an impressive ability to identify and clarify central issues in the current discourse on Afrocentricity, multiculturalism, race, culture, ethnicity and related themes. Dr. Asante offers an insightful and valuable response to Eurocentric critics of the Afrocentric initiative while simultaneously addressing a wide range of issues critical to understanding this important intellectual enterprise, including African agency, location, orientation, centerdness, subject-place and cultural groundedness. The volume is thoughtful, multifaceted and rewarding, and yields a rich sense of the contours and complexity of the Afrocentric project." --Dr. Maulana Karenga, Chair, Department of Black Studies, California State University, Long Beach

Dr. Asante combines cultural studies, linguistics, historiography, Kemetology, and Africology in this brilliant response to the critics of Afrocentricity. He demonstrates that the principal problem with the critics of Afrocentrics is their disbelief in the agency of Africans--that is the ability of Africans to create society, community, culture and civilization. Asante challenges the basic arguments of the critics and reiterates the correctness of the Afrocentric vision for the African world.

In a successful balance of polemics and analysis, the author engages Stephen Howe, Mary Lefkowitz, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and others, with wit and intelligence. The book is useful for readers interested in the general studies of ancient Africa as well as the continuing discourse around the Afrocentric idea.

Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation
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Hardcover: 294 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591020697

In this profound study of America's persistent racial divide, Molefi Kete Asante, a leading scholar of African American history and culture, discusses the festering issue of systemic racism in America. As Asante makes clear, America continues to be a nation of two peoples with very different histories and perspectives.

Reed Business Information, Inc.
In this scathing analysis of the history of racism in America, Asante divides the nation into two camps: a white majority who perceives America as a land of promise, and a black minority that is relegated to exist in a wilderness on the margins of society. Asante, the chair of African-American studies at Temple University and a proponent of Afro-centrism, lays out a non-linear history of racial matters in America, weaving the 17th century arrival of the first indentured African servants with the Los Angeles race riots of 1992 and his own experiences as a black man in America. The key to bridging the racial divide, he argues, lies in getting all Americans to understand and confront the history of slavery. Otherwise, the gap will remain open and the significance of all subsequent racial injustices, from lynchings to police profiling, is lost. Asante can be sketchy in some of his examples of headline-making events involving race (including the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, for instance). Whether one agrees with him or not, however, he backs many of his harsh accusations with tough questions, carefully crafted solutions and engaging personal anecdotes. In the end, anyone who has struggled to understand race relations in America or to engage others in open debate about it will glean something valuable from this book.
—Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Encyclopedia of Black Studies
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Hardcover: 568 pages
Publisher: SAGE Publications; 1 edition (December 9, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 076192762X

The Encyclopedia of Black Studies is the leading reference source for dynamic and innovative research on the Black Experience. The concept for the encyclopedia was developed from the successful Journal of Black Studies (SAGE) and contains a full analysis of the economic, political, sociological, historical, literary, and philosophical issues related to Americans of African descent.

100 Greatest African Americans
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Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (March 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1573929638

Asante, professor in the African American Studies program at Temple University, has written a volume in which he attempts to distill his work on the history of African Americans into a list of the 100 greatest people in that history--a difficult task to be sure, and one that can lead to arguments over the choices. Whether one feels Barbara Jordan would make a better choice than Shirley Chisholm, or that Matthew Gaines was a stronger educator than John Russwurm, it is hard to disagree with the people who Asante chose to highlight. He explains his choices in the introduction and makes it very clear that he left out numerous current popular people because he feels the hype around the pop persona is not what makes an individual important. He makes no attempt to rank the people he selected because he viewed that as an impossible task, so arrangement is alphabetical. A short bibliography lists material for further research.

The 100 people who are included range from former slaves such as Crispus Attucks and Phillis Wheatley to more contemporary individuals such as Amiri Baraka and Toni Morrison. Among others are sports figures Jesse Owens and Tiger Woods, performers Marian Anderson and Bill Cosby, and political activists Marcus Garvey and Jesse Jackson. Each portrait covers two to four pages that summarize the person's life, work, and importance and is accompanied by a black-and-white photograph or illustration. There is enough variety so that students with assignments will have no trouble focusing on someone in their area of interest.

Most of the 100 are covered in other reference sources, but this volume offers a reasonably priced, easy-to-digest collection of articles. Recommended for school and public library collections. RBB
—Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Afrocentric Idea
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Paperback: 235 pages
Publisher: Temple University Press; Revised edition (January 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 156639595X

This new edition of The Afrocentric Idea boldly confronts the contemporary challenges that have been launched against Molefi Kete Asante's philosophical, social, and cultural theory. By rendering a critique of some postmodern positions as well as the old structured Eurocentric orientations, this new edition contains lively engagements with views expressed by Mary Lefkowitz, Paul Gilroy, and Cornel West.

From the Inside Flap
"Asante's wide range of references, his delightful examples taken from black traditions, and his sheer pleasure at discussing black culture, all combine to make his argument both cogent and important. This will be a major book." —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Chair, Afro-American Studies Department, Harvard University, and W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities

"Commencing with a spirited criticism of traditional Western academic discourse, Asante's drama concludes with a discussion of a transformative African and African-American discourse that puts its participants in possession of the dynamic spirits of a distinctive African cultural experience." —Chronicle of Higher Education

"Mr. Asante is widely regarded as a major proponent of 'Afrocentricity,' or the understanding of the black experience as an extension of African history and culture.... He is credited with doing as much as anyone to build a theoretical base for an idea that has been around for sometime." —Quarterly Journal of Speech

"Not the least purpose of The Afrocentric Idea is to show blacks they have an African heritage and history that have persisted through, and helped blacks to survive slavery and subsequent discrimination." —The New York Review of Books

Egypt VS. Greece
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Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: African American Images; 1st edition (April 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0913543772

Debating the development of civilization in Egypt and Greece, this collection of essays explores European misconceptions of African history. Featuring contributions from some of the top scholars in African American studies, this book analyzes the inconsistencies erupting from academic and Eurocentric reports on ancient culture.

Culture and Customs of Egypt
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Hardcover: 184 pages
Publisher: Greenwood Press (September 30, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0313317402

Modern Egypt blends African history and geography with Arab culture and religion. With its position at the crossroads of Africa, its status as a major Islamic nation, and continuing interest in its ancient monuments, Egypt makes for fascinating study. This volume provides an accessible, up-to-date overview of a society that greatly evolved, yet retains traces of attitudes and behaviors from the days of the Pharaohs. This volume's insights into everyday life, sociopolitical structures, and cultural institutions transcend ordinary guide books. Asante, a noted Africanist, authoritatively presents the richness of Egypt from the Nile to the Nubian influence, to Cairo congestion and carpet schools. Chapters describe the land, people, history, education, tourism, religion, art and architecture, food, social customs and lifestyles, literature, media, cinema, and performing arts. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the text.

African Intellectual Heritage
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Temple University Press (June 25, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1566394031

Organized by major themes—such as creation stories, and resistance to oppression—this collection gather works of imagination, politics and history, religion, and culture from many societies and across recorded time. Asante and Abarry marshal together ancient, anonymous writers whose texts were originally written on stone and papyri and the well-known public figures of more recent times whose spoken and written words have shaped the intellectual history of the diaspora.

Within this remarkably wide-ranging volume are such sources as prayers and praise songs from ancient Kemet and Ethiopia along with African American spirituals; political commentary from C.L.R. James, Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Joseph Nyerere; stirring calls for social justice from David Walker, Abdias Nacimento, Franzo Fanon, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring newly translated texts and documents published for the first time, the volume also includes an African chronology, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. With this landmark book, Asante and Abarry offer a major contribution to the ongoing debates on defining the African canon.

Related Links

http://www.asante.net/

The Black Candle: A Kwanzaa Celebration
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Unrated
Actors: Maya Angelou, Chuck D
Directors: M.K. Asante Jr.
Producers: M.K. Asante Jr., Ben Haaz
Format: NTSC, Color, Widescreen
Region: All Regions
Studio: Asante Filmworx
Run Time: 71 minutes

Read an AALBC.com DVD Review

The Black Candle is a landmark, vibrant documentary that uses Kwanzaa as a vehicle to celebrate the African-American experience. Narrated by renowned poet Maya Angelou and directed by award-winning author and filmmaker M.K. Asante, Jr., The Black Candle is an extraordinary, inspirational story about the struggle and triumph of African-American family, community, and culture. Filmed across the United States, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, The Black Candle is a timely illumination on why the seven principles of Kwanzaa are so important to African-Americans today. The first feature film on Kwanzaa, The Black Candle traces the holiday's growth out of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s to its present-day reality as a global, pan-African holiday embraced by over 40 million celebrants. With vivid cinematography and an all star cast that features the best and brightest from the hip-hop and the civil rights generations, The Black Candle is more than a film about a holiday: it's a celebration of a people!