"Focusing primarily, though not exclusively, on the southeastern United States, the book examines works ranging from James Hampton's well-known Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (now part of the Smithsonian collection), to several elaborately decorated yards and gardens, to smaller-scale acts of commemoration, protection, and witness. The authors show how the artful arrangement and adornment of everyday objects and plants express both the makers' own experiences and concerns and a number of rich and sustaining cultural traditions. They identify a "lexicon" of material signs that are frequently and consistently used in African American culture and art and then show how such elements have been used in various individual works and what they mean to the practitioners themselves."--BOOK JACKET.

The concept of African American home ground knits together diverse aspects of the American landscape, from elite suburbs and tower apartments to the old homeplaces of the countryside, to the tabletop array of family photos beside the bed of a housebound elder. This fascinating volume focuses on ways African Americans have invested actual and symbolic landscapes with signifigance, gained the means to acquire property, and brought new insight to the interpretation of contemporary, historical, and archaelogical sites. Keep Your Head to the Sky demonstrates how visions of home, past and present, have helped to shape African Americans' sense of place, often under extremely hostile conditions.

Slave family could assert some measure of independence and perhaps find some degree of spiritual refreshment. Since slavery, working the garden for the survival of the family has become less urgent, but now pleasure is taken from growing flowers and produce and in welcoming friends to the yard. Similarities in attitude between rural southern blacks and whites are reflected in the expression of such values as the importance of the agrarian lifestyle, self-reliance, and.

"Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the space race, [this book] follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances, and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future"--Back cover.

Based on the New York Times bestselling book and the Academy Award–nominated movie, author Margot Lee Shetterly and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award winner Laura Freeman bring the incredibly inspiring true story of four black women who helped NASA launch men into space to picture book readers! Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden were good at math…really good. They participated in some of NASA's greatest successes, like providing the calculations for America's first journeys into space. And they did so during a time when being black and a woman limited what they could do. But they worked hard. They persisted. And they used their genius minds to change the world. In this beautifully illustrated picture book edition, we explore the story of four female African American mathematicians at NASA, known as "colored computers," and how they overcame gender and racial barriers to succeed in a highly challenging STEM-based career. "Finally, the extraordinary lives of four African American women who helped NASA put the first men in space is available for picture book readers," proclaims Brightly in their article "18 Must-Read Picture Books of 2018." "Will inspire girls and boys alike to love math, believe in themselves, and reach for the stars."

An examination of various cultural concepts of space and how differences among them affect modern society. Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal.

After The Tale of Genji (c. 1000), the greatest work of classical Japanese literature is the historical narrative The Tale of the Heike (13th-14th centuries). In addition to opening up fresh perspectives on the Heike narratives, this study also draws attention to a range of problems centered on the interrelationship between narrative, ritual space, and Japan's changing views of China as they bear on depictions of the emperor's authority, warriors, and marginal population going all the way back to the Nara period. By situating the Heike in this long temporal framework, the author sheds light on a hidden history of royal authority that was entangled in Daoist and yin-yang ideas in the Nara period, practices centered on defilement in the Heian period, and Buddhist doctrines pertaining to original enlightenment in the medieval period, all of which resurface and combine in Heike's narrative world. In introducing for the first time the full range of Heike narrative to students and scholars of Japanese literature, the author argues that we must also reexamine our understanding of the literature, ritual, and culture of the Heian and Nara periods.