Contributors to this issue reconfigure concepts of art, culture, and politics through the lens of cosmopolitanism. Focusing on the historical and cultural entanglement of Africa and Europe at the intersection of decolonization and modernity, the contributors emphasize the potential of cosmopolitanism to shape possibilities for coexistence and living with difference among all people. Visual and textual essays address the causes and consequences of migration between Africa and Europe; the classification of artistic practices whose roots are not confined to any particular nation; and mid-twentieth-century debates on decolonization, modernity/modernism, and identity through a cosmopolitan viewpoint. Examining cosmopolitanism through theoretical perspectives as well as visual art practices, contributors to this heavily illustrated issue fill in the gaps in contemporary understandings of cultural and political dynamics between Africa and Europe.
Contributors. Hans Belting, Susan Buck-Morss, Jareh Das, Naminata Diabate, Fatima El Tayeb, Salah M. Hassan, Achille Mbembe, Sandy Prita Meier, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Tejumola Olaniyan, Manuela Ribeiro Sanches, Berni Searle, Bahia Shehab, Brett M. Van Hoesen, Selene Wendt, Siegfried Zielinski
Salah M. Hassan is Goldwin Smith Professor of African and African Diaspora Art History and Visual Culture at Cornell University, coeditor of Nka, and editor of Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist.
Chika Okeke-Agulu is Professor of African and African Diaspora Art History at Princeton University, coeditor of Nka, and author of Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria, also published by Duke University Press.