Letter from the Associate Editor: From Culture We Rise

Abstract

African culture is everything. It is birth and rebirth. The tethers that weave together the strands of all that was, is, or ever will be for African people rise from cultural production and consumption. From ancient traditions that celebrate the cosmic material and ethereal forces that crafted the universe to the systems that govern cooperative social orders to roles of responsibility necessary for the perpetuation of the African family, culture resides at the heart of it all. In fact, culture itself forms the heart and the life blood that sustains Africa and her people without end.

The theme of this issue Wehemu Mesu, Repetition of the Births, is a phrase that necessarily lends itself to the arena of cultural production. The chapters in this volume engage topics that include literary criticism, ancient historical perspectives, African modes of government, and familial archetypes. Informed by history we understand that cultural production is the impetus, the catalyst that sparks the conception of creation and recreation whether ideological, spiritual, or physically rendered. Scholars who stand as giants in the field of Africology, including Diop, Asante, Karenga, Dove, Mazama, and Ani have all produced works that explore the pivotal nature of culture production. Indeed, the cosmological, ethical system of Maat, the Afrocentric quest for humanity and agency, the origins of African civilization, the parameters that define Afrocentricity as a discipline, and the perpetual nature of African spirituality compose subject matter that necessarily engages African culture. The influence of this scholarship reverberates through every chapter included in this issue of Imhotep.