Examines the vast array of art produced by African Americans in response to the continuing impact of anti-Black violence and how it is used to protest, process, mourn and memorialize those events.

From postwar efforts to end discrimination in the motion-picture industry, recording studios, and musicians’ unions, through the development of community-based arts organizations, to the creation of searing films critiquing conditions in the black working class neighborhoods of a city touting its multiculturalism—Black Arts West documents the social and political significance of African American arts activity in Los Angeles between the Second World War and the riots of 1992. Focusing on the lives and work of black writers, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers, Daniel Widener tells how black cultural politics changed over time, and how altered political realities generated new forms of artistic and cultural expression. His narrative is filled with figures invested in the politics of black art and culture in postwar Los Angeles, including not only African American artists but also black nationalists, affluent liberal whites, elected officials, and federal bureaucrats. Along with the politicization of black culture, Widener explores the rise of a distinctive regional Black Arts Movement. Originating in the efforts of wartime cultural activists, the movement was rooted in the black working class and characterized by struggles for artistic autonomy and improved living and working conditions for local black artists. As new ideas concerning art, racial identity, and the institutional position of African American artists emerged, dozens of new collectives appeared, from the Watts Writers Workshop, to the Inner City Cultural Center, to the New Art Jazz Ensemble. Spread across generations of artists, the Black Arts Movement in Southern California was more than the artistic affiliate of the local civil-rights or black-power efforts: it was a social movement itself. Illuminating the fundamental connections between expressive culture and political struggle, Black Arts West is a major contribution to the histories of Los Angeles, black radicalism, and avant-garde art.

Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts invites readers to think critically about how artists, artworks, and museums engage with narratives of the past. Richly illustrated and written for a general audience, this book showcases the depth and breadth of more than fifty recent acquisitions to the Block Museum of Art's contemporary collection, including a wide-ranging selection of works by Dawoud Bey, Shan Goshorn, the Guerrilla Girls, Marisol, Kerry James Marshall, Catherine Opie, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Kara Walker, among other artists. The book is a companion publication to the 2021 exhibition of the same name, presented to celebrate the museum's fortieth anniversary, and both draw inspiration from a work by conceptual artist Louise Lawler, Who Says, Who Shows, Who Counts (1990), and are organized around challenging questions of historical representation within artworks and institutions: How can art help us reflect upon, question, rewrite, or reimagine the past? Who has been represented in visual art, how, and by whom? How is history etched onto a landscape or erased from it? How do museums and dominant canons of art history shape our view of history and of the past? Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts demonstrates how an academic art museum's collection can facilitate multidisciplinary connections and tell stories about issues relevant to our lives.

Here is a visual celebration of African American Art from it's beginnings in Colonial America up to the present day. From early folk art to contemporary paintings, prints, and sculpture, a selection of 107 full-color illustrations presents the remarkable history of America's Black artistic heritage.

The Crisis was an integral element of the struggle to combat racism in America. As editor of the magazine (1910–1934), W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the important issues facing African Americans. He used the journal as a means of racial uplift, celebrating the joys and hopes of African American culture and life, and as a tool to address the injustices black Americans experienced—the sorrows of persistent discrimination and racial terror, and especially the crime of lynching. The written word was not sufficient. Visual imagery was central to bringing his message to the homes of readers and emphasizing the importance of the cause. Art was integral to his political program. Art in Crisis: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for African American Identity and Memory reveals how W. E. B. Du Bois created a "visual vocabulary" to define a new collective memory and historical identity for African Americans.

The Theology of Struggle is a genuinely popular Fillipino theology rooted in the history and culture of a people who have endured colonial oppression at the hands of Spain, North America, and Japan, as well as neo-colonialism and home grown dictatorship. Because Christianity has played a role in assisting the history of oppression in the Phillippines, a theology of struggle must include a struggle in theology, to wrest Christian symbols from the hands of the oppressors and return them to the poor. This theology, which is otherwise expressed in articles, poems, art, and action, receives its first systematic treatment in Toward a Theology of Struggle. In Part On, Fernandez establishes the historical and cultural context out of which the Theology of Struggle has emerged. Part Two represents Fernandez's own constructive work, in which he shows how a theology of struggle must address the quest for identity and peoplehood. In Part Three, Fernandez explores the question of theological method, outlining the areas of convergence and distinction between the Theology of struggle and other Third World theologies, as well as setting forth the distinctive challenge that this theology of the Philippines poses to the authority and dominance of Western theology as a whole.

This introductory textbook unites the study of rhetoric with the persuasive potential of today's 'texts' in popular culture. By providing students with a means by which to understand why popular texts are important to study-as well as how to examine these texts' underlying messages from a variety of rhetorical perspectives-Deanna Sellnow helps readers become critical consumers of the many popular culture texts that influence them in their daily lives.Features &BAD:amp; Benefits:This textbook unites rhetorical criticism with mediated popular cultural texts (e.g., film, television, rap music) in ways that relate directly to the experiences of people in society today. Each chapter is devoted to one theoretical perspective (e.g., narrative, dramatistic, Marxist, feminist, illusion of life, visual pleasure, media effects) Each chapter provides (a) an explana¡tion of a particular rhetorical theory, (b) examples of messages the theory reveals when applied to vari¡ous contemporary popular culture texts, (c) embedded ôapplying what youÆve learnedö opportuni¡ties for students to practice examining a specific film, television program, song, or adver¡tisement using the theory, (d) one or two scholarly articles that use the theory to examine a popular culture text, (e) one or two sample student papers that use the theory to examine a popu¡lar culture text, and (f) an end-of-chapter challenge posed to students to examine in depth a contempo¡rary artifact using the concepts described in the chapter Each chapter opens with reflective questions to guide students to about specific examples as read the chapter.