Full Description
In Performances of Spiral Time, famed Afro-Brazilian thinker Leda Maria Martins theorizes forms of African and African diasporic temporality, corporeality, and space that exist apart from and critique Eurocentric notions of linear time. Martins introduces the notion of "spiral time" - curved and recurrent temporalities materialized in Black corporealities in which the body is the place of the inscription of memory and knowledge. She draws on African and African diasporic philosophy as well as the ritual performance and quotidian practices of Afro-Brazilians, arguing that spiral time is most powerfully expressed by the moving body. Embodied performance - whether manifested as capoeira, Candomblé, or theater - and the influence of oral traditions, sacredness, and ancestrality, cause time and memory to curve and return. With this theorization, Martins not only counters claims to the dominance of Western linear time; she provides a polyvalent and foundational account of African and African diasporic thought and ontology.
Contents
Black Swan Song / Fred Moten xi
Ritornellos xii
Composition I. Theosophies, Times, and Theories 1
Composition II. The Curved Time of Memory
Composition III. Poetics of Oralitura
Composition IV. My Destiny Is to Sing, the Mythopoetic Gesta of the Reinados
Composition V. A Canvas-Body, a Firefly Poetics
Ntangu. On Spiral Time, Condensations
List of Performances and Theatrical works
Notes
Bibliography
Index
