Conversion Reconsidered: Some Historical Aspects of Religious Conversion in Black Africa

Africa ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Humphrey J. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Religious Conversion ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
The Core ◽  
Black Africa ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThis paper had its genesis in the recent thoughtful and stimulating article by Robin Horton, on African conversion; the core of his argument is summarized below. Horton's evidence is chiefly drawn from Christian African experience, though he seeks to generalize from it for both Islam and Christianity. My specific purpose here is to look more closely at the phenomenon of Muslim conversion, and to see what light this may throw on Horton's argument. In particular, he has, I think, over-estimated the survival, admittedly in considerably developed forms, of original African elements of religion; and more important, has under-estimated the willingness and ability of Africans to make even rigorous Islam and Christianity their own. My other, general, purpose is to suggest that such Muslim/Christian comparisons may considerably enlarge our perspectives upon black Africa. The comparative approach is extended further, I hope not rashly, with brief considerations of conversion in the ancient world, and of the effects of literacy.

scholarly journals The Social Oikos

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Michael Lee Humphrey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Core Points

In one of the foundational articles of persona studies, Marshall and Barbour (2015) look to Hannah Arendt for development of a key concept within the larger persona framework: “Arendt saw the need to construct clear and separate public and private identities. What can be discerned from this understanding of the public and the private is a nuanced sense of the significance of persona: the presentation of the self for public comportment and expression” (2015, p. 3). But as far back as the ancient world from which Arendt draws her insights, the affordance of persona was not evenly distributed. As Gines (2014) argues, the realm of the household, oikos, was a space of subjugation of those who were forced to be “private,” tending to the necessities of life, while others were privileged with life in the public at their expense. To demonstrate the core points of this essay, I use textual analysis of a YouTube family vlog, featuring a Black mother in the United States, whose persona rapidly changed after she and her White husband divorced. By critically examining Arendt’s concepts around public, private, and social, a more nuanced understanding of how personas are formed in unjust cultures can help us theorize persona studies in more egalitarian and robust ways.

A Study of Contemporary System Performance Testing Framework

2018 ◽  
pp. 7563-7576
Author(s):  
Alex Ng ◽  
Shiping Chen
Keyword(s):  
System Performance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Performance Testing ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Testing Framework ◽  
The Core ◽  
Application Logic ◽  
The Common ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Performance testing is one of the vital activities spanning the whole life cycle of software engineering. As a result, there are a considerable number of performance testing products and open source tools available. It has been observed that most of the existing performance testing products and tools are either too expensive and complicated for small projects, or too specific and simple for diverse performance tests. In this chapter, we will present an overview of existing performance test products/tools, provide a summary of some of the contemporary system performance testing frameworks, and capture the key requirements for a general-purpose performance testing framework. Based on our previous works, we propose a system performance testing framework which is suitable for both simple and small, as well as complicated and large-scale performance testing projects. The core of our framework contains an abstraction to facilitate performance testing by separating the application logic from the common performance testing functionality, and a set of general-purpose data model.

The Werewolf, Inside and Out

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-108
Author(s):  
Daniel Ogden
Keyword(s):  
Inner Core ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Human Element ◽  
The Core ◽  
Opposite Process ◽  
Human Flesh

Ancient werewolf thinking was strongly articulated in accordance with an axis between an inside and an outside, in three ways. First, the werewolf was often understood as a combination of an outer carapace and an inner core: more often the human element formed the carapace, and the lupine element the core, but the opposite arrangement could also obtain. Usually the humanoid carapace was identified, awkwardly, with the werewolf’s human clothing, and the wolf was revealed once this was shed; but sometimes, perhaps, the wolf could be more deeply buried within, as in the cases of those, like Aristomenes, that boasted a hairy heart. The inner and outer form could be pinned together, as it were, by an identifying wound; it is also possible that the belief that a wound could force a werewolf back into human form existed already in the ancient world. Secondly, a werewolf transformation, in either direction, could be effected by the taking of a foodstuff within the body: a man could be transformed into a werewolf by eating an (enchanted?) piece of bread, or the food most appropriate to a wolf, human flesh; he could be transformed back into a man either by abstinence from human flesh or by the equal-and-opposite process of eating a wolf’s heart. And, thirdly, it was the impulse of the werewolf, when transformed from man to wolf, to make a bolt from the inner places of humanity and civilisation for the outer places of the wilderness and the forest.

scholarly journals Machine Learning in Python: Main Developments and Technology Trends in Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Raschka ◽  
Joshua Patterson ◽  
Corey Nolet
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Gpu Computing ◽  
Graphics Processing Unit ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Processing Unit ◽  
The Core ◽  
Critical Components ◽  
High Level

Smarter applications are making better use of the insights gleaned from data, having an impact on every industry and research discipline. At the core of this revolution lies the tools and the methods that are driving it, from processing the massive piles of data generated each day to learning from and taking useful action. Deep neural networks, along with advancements in classical machine learning and scalable general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPU) computing, have become critical components of artificial intelligence, enabling many of these astounding breakthroughs and lowering the barrier to adoption. Python continues to be the most preferred language for scientific computing, data science, and machine learning, boosting both performance and productivity by enabling the use of low-level libraries and clean high-level APIs. This survey offers insight into the field of machine learning with Python, taking a tour through important topics to identify some of the core hardware and software paradigms that have enabled it. We cover widely-used libraries and concepts, collected together for holistic comparison, with the goal of educating the reader and driving the field of Python machine learning forward.

Song and spirit: The use of songs in the management of ritual contexts

Africa ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennetta Jules-Rosette
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Apostolic Church

Opening ParagraphThe Apostolic Church of John Maranke (Vapostori or Bapostolo), an indigenous Christian church founded in Umtali, Rhodesia, now has congregations across Central Africa. For the Church's central ritual event, the Sabbath kerek, and other occasions of worship, singing constitutes the core of ritual practice and is used to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit. These songs combine traditional Bantu rhythmic patterns with a unique Apostolic form. Often drawn from biblical themes, the songs are composed by members as spiritually inspired pieces.

scholarly journals Soundjata ou l’epopée mandingue à la lumiere de la structure du mythe du héros ou le désir d’etre Dieu de Philippe Sellier

FRANCISOLA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Dame KANE
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Mots Clés ◽  
Epic Hero ◽  
Black Africa ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
The 1960S

RÉSUMÉ. L’intrusion de  l’oralité dans les champs de recherche universitaire d’Afrique noire dans les années 1960, a mis au grand  jour la richesse des récits épiques maliens. Plusieurs possibilités se présentent dans leur étude notamment l’analyse de leur liens avec l’épopée occidentale. Ce qui pourrait se faire en nous appuyant sur l’approche de Sellier (1970) suivant une démarche comparative. Soundjata,  figure historique fondatrice de l’empire du Mali et initiatrice de la charte du Manden  établie à kouroukan Fouga avec ses alliés de Kirina ayant triomphé du Roi forgeron Soumaoro Kanté à la bataille de Kirina en1235, devient, de ce fait, un personnage épique. Son épopée chantée par les griots, autrefois détenteurs de l’histoire, sera reprise par plusieurs auteurs comme Niane (1960) dans Soundjata ou l’épopée mandingue qui exalte les exploits de ce Roi-lion qui continue de marquer la mémoire des africains notamment de son peuple. Dans cet article, il est question, donc, de voir si cette œuvre de Niane prend en considération les différentes étapes du modèle héroïque classique tel qu’il est présenté par Sellier (1970) dans La structure du mythe du héros ou le désir d’être Dieu. Mots-clés : épopée, héros, manding, négro-africain, Sellier, Soundjata ABSTRACT. The intrusion of orality into the academic research fields of black Africa in the 1960s brought to light the richness of Malian epic narratives. Several possibilities exist in their study, including the analysis of their links with the Western epic. This could be done by using the Sellier approach (1970) using a comparative approach. Soundjata, founding historical figure of the Malian empire and initiator of the Manden charter established at Kurukan Fouga with his Kirina allies having triumphed over the blacksmith king Soumaoro Kanté at the Battle of Kirina in 1235, becomes, therefore, an epic character . His epic sung by the griots, formerly holders of the story, will be taken up by several authors like Niane (1960) in Soundjata or the Mandingo epic that extols the exploits of this Lion King who continues to mark the memory of Africans including his people. In this article, it is a question, therefore, to see if this work of Niane takes into consideration the different stages of the classic heroic model as presented by Sellier (1970) in The structure of the myth of the hero or the desire of to be God. Keywords: épic, héro, manding,  négro-african,  Sellier, Soundjata

New insights into the mechanisms of lipid-body biogenesis in plants and other organisms

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 710-711 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Murphy ◽  
I. Hernendez-Pinzon ◽  
K. Patel ◽  
R. G. Hope ◽  
J. McLauchlan
Keyword(s):  
Endoplasmic Reticulum ◽  
Calcium Binding ◽  
Core Protein ◽  
Animal Cell ◽  
Lipid Body ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Powerful Approach

A comparative approach has been used to study the role of several lipid-body-binding proteins in plants and animals. Caleosins are a newly discovered class of calcium-binding lipid-body proteins found in plants and fungi, which we now report to have separate endoplasmic reticulum and lipid-body-associated isoforms. We also compare the lipid-body targeting of oleosin from plants and the core protein of the hepatitis C virus when they were expressed separately in lipid-accumulating animal cell lines. This is a novel and powerful approach to investigating the factors that determine the lipid-body targeting of a wide range of proteins.

The ideology of ‘communal’ land tenure in Zimbabwe: Mythogenesis enacted?

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Cheater
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Core ◽  
Communal Land ◽  
The Future ◽  
Core Issue ◽  
Liberation Struggle ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphLand is widely regarded as central to the politics of both colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe. Land was, ostensibly, the core issue over which the liberation struggle was waged. On the successful redistribution of land, in Shamuyarira's (1984: 8) view, will depend ‘the future reputation and credibility of the new socio-economic and political order among the Zimbabwean masses’. Land, then, is ‘vital’ (ibid.) to both leaders and led in Zimbabwe.

The emergence of a Diola Christianity

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Baum
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
The South ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The North ◽  
Temporary Response ◽  
South Shore ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphAfrican religious history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been dominated by the rapid growth of Islam and Christianity. This has been especially true of the Senegambia region of West Africa, which has witnessed the adoption of Islam by approximately 80 per cent of the region's populace and the development of a small, but influential Christian minority. Among the Diola of the Casamance region of Senegal, Islam and Christianity have both enjoyed rapid growth. The approximately half million Diola, however, include the largest number of adherents of their traditional religion within the Senegambian region. They are sedentary rice farmers and are usually described as acephalous peoples. While Muslims and Christians have been in contact with the Diola since the fifteenth century there were few conversions during the pre-colonial era (Baum, 1986). During the colonial era Islam became the dominant religion among the Diola on the north shore of the Casamance river, and Christianity also attracted a considerable following (Mark, 1985). Among the south shore communities neither Islam nor Christianity became important until after the Second World War. Seeing the increased momentum of recent years, many observers are confident that the south shore Diola will follow the northern example and convert to Islam or Christianity. Louis Vincent Thomas, the doyen of Diola ethnographers, described Diola traditional religion as ‘a false remedy to a very real crisis; fetishism will become a temporary response that will be quickly swept away by another attempt, even larger and undoubtedly more profound: Islam and perhaps we could add, Christianity’ (Thomas, 1967: 225; translations are my own, unless otherwise stated).

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