Sidney Carolyn Littlefield Kasfir
Curriculum Vitae
Current Position
Associate Professor, Emory University, 1995-
(Assistant Professor, 1989-95)
Education
1979, degree awarded 1981
PhD African Art
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Dissertation: "Visual Arts of the Idoma of Central Nigeria"
MA Art History
Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University
BS Physics and Mathematics (highest honors)
Simmons College
Courses Taught
African Art and Architecture after 1500 (West Africa)
Arts of Eastern and Southern Africa
Islamic Arts and Architecture in Subsaharan Africa
Postcolonial African Art Arts of the Black Atlantic World (co-taught)
Arts of Africa, Oceania and Native America
Reinventing Native American Art (seminar) African Architecture (seminar)
Theatre, Rites and Social Crisis: the World Upside Down (co-taught)
Art History Survey (team-taught) Methods and Theory in Art History (seminar, team-taught)
Primitivism and 20th Century Art (seminar, co-taught)
Savages:Images of the Colonized in Art and Literature (seminar, co-taught)
Women and Masks (seminar)
Masks and Theory (seminar)
Art and/as Commodity (seminar)
Fieldwork in African Art and Performance (seminar)
The Ethnographic Object : Issues of Collection and Display (seminar)
The Decorated Body (seminar)
Modernism and Ethnography (seminar, co-taught)
From the Niger to the Nile: 19th c. Explorers and African Art (freshman seminar)
Dressed to Kill: Cloth and Power in Africa and Ancient America (co-taught)
Current Research Fields
African localities in the globalized art market (field research Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya 1991-2000, Kampala, Uganda 1996-98, 2003, Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa 1996); Samburu smiths, tourism and modernity (Kenya 1991-2000): Postcolonial nomads: Samburu/Maasai representations in Western popular media (Kenya 1991-2001); Nineteenth century jihad, the British incursion and the early collection of African art in the Benue: a precolonial "globalization" project (Nigeria, current project based in 1986 and 1989 archival and fieldwork).
Publications
1. Books and Book Manuscripts
Transforming Objects :African Art from Colonial Specimen to Global Commodity
(completed book manuscript under review)
Contemporary African Art. Thames and Hudson, 1999 (French edition 2000).
Editor and contributor (2 chapters). West African Masks and Cultural Systems. Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren. 1988."Masquerading as a Cultural System" and "Celebrating Male Aggression : the Idoma Oglinye Masquerade."
2. Books Chapters, Refereed Journal Articles
"Tourist Aesthetics in the Global Flow: Orientalism and Warrior Theatre at the Swahili Coast." Visual Anthropology (special issue, 17 (3-4), 2003, in press).
"Thinking about artworlds in a global flow: some major disparities in dealing with visual culture." International Journal of Anthropology, (special issue, 18 (4), 2003, in press).
"Katarikawe Dreaming: Notes on a Retrospective" (review article, Bilder aus Träumen:Dreaming in Pictures : Jak Katarikawe by Johanna Agthe and Elsbeth Joyce Court) African Arts XXXV,4 (winter 2002) 74-77, 96.
"Beyond shadows and mirrors: understanding locality in a globalized art discourse," in B. Hauser-Schäublin and D.Braukämper (eds.), Ethnologie der Globalisierung: Perspektiven kultureller Verflechtungen.,Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 2002.
"Slam-dunking and the Last Noble Savage", Visual Anthropology (special issue on images of pastoralists) 15(3), 2002: 369-386.
"Artists' Reputations: Negotiating Power through Distance and Ambiguity," African Arts, 33 (1), spring 2000.
"Samburu Souvenirs"in Unpacking Culture : Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, ed.by Ruth B. Phillips and Christopher Steiner. University of California Press, 1999, 67-83.
"Elephant Women, Furious and Majestic," African Arts, 31 (2), 1998: 18-27, 92.
"African Art in a Suitcase: How Value Travels" (review article), Transition 69, New Series vol 6, no 1, 1996: 146-158.
"Field Notes : Africa Reimagined" (review article ). Museum Anthropology, spring 1995.
"Taste and Distaste: The Canon of New African Art," Transition 57, New Series vol 2, no 3, 1992: 52 - 70
Response to solicited comments: "African Art and Authenticity." African Arts XXV (4), November 1992: 28-30, 100-103.
"African Art and Authenticity: A Text with a Shadow" African Arts, XXV (2), April 1992: 41-53, 96-97.
"Remembering Ojiji: Portrait of an Idoma Artist," African Arts, XXII (4), Summer 1989:44-51, 86-87.
"Apprentices and Entrepreneurs: the Workshop and Style Uniformity in African Art." Iowa Studies in African Arts, vol. II, edited by Christopher Roy. 1987: 25-48.
"The Mask of Aja," (research note), African Arts, XIX, 2 (winter 1986): 83-84.
"Art in History, History in Art: the Idoma Alekwuafia Masquerade as Historical Evidence." Working Papers, no. 103. Boston University, African Studies Center, 1985.
"Masks from the Towns of the Dead: the Igbo- Idoma Borderland." in Igbo Arts; Community and Cosmos, by Herbert M. Cole, Chike Aniakor et al. Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, 1984.
"One Tribe, One Style? Paradigms in the Historiography of African Art." History in Africa, vol. 11, 1984: 63-93.
"A Life-sized Figure from Northern Nigeria," (research note), African Arts, XVII, 2 (winter 1984): 67.
"Anjenu: Sculpture for Idoma Water Spirits." African Arts, XV, 4 (summer 1982): 47-51, 91-92.
"Patronage and Maconde Carvers." African Arts, XIII, 3 (spring 1980): 67-70, 91-92.
"Richard Ndabagoye: Kampala Printmaker." African Arts, V, 3 (spring 1972): 33-36.
"Nnaggenda: Experimental Ugandan Artist." African Arts/Arts D'Afrique, III, 1 (autumn 1969): 8-13, 88.
3. Catalogue Essays, Review, Criticism and Encylopedia Entries (representative list only)
Essay on Idoma/ Ogoja mask headdress. Frederick J. Lamp, ed. See the Music, Hear the Dance: Rethinking African Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore and Munich : The Baltimore Museum of Art and Prestel Verlag, 2004 ( in press)
Editor, Dialogue forum on "Museums and Contemporary African Art: Some Questions for Curators," African Arts, XXXV,4 (winter 2002), 9, 87-90.
Review of The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology by Anna Grimshaw,The International Journal of African Historical Studies 35: 2/3, 2002, 550-551.
Entries on Samburu, Idoma and Maconde art .Dictionary of African Art. Macmillan, in press. (Entries on Idoma and Maconde art, Dictionary of Art, Macmillan, 1997).
Entry on Tourist art, Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Africa, Simon & Schuster, 1998.
"Commodification of African Art", The Afropaedia, CD-ROM format encyclopedia, ed. by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr, 1998.
"La basse vallée de la Bénoué : Idoma, Tiv et Afo" (essay and catalog entries), Arts du Nigeria : Collection du Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris, 1997, 192-198, 200, 204-215, 244.
Entry for Idoma elephant mask in Visions of Africa: The Jerome L. Joss Collection of African Art at UCLA. Doran H. Ross, ed. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1994, 97-98.
"Ivory from Zariba Country to the Land of Zinj." Catalog essay for Elephant: The Animal and its Ivory in African Art, ed. by Doran H. Ross. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, 1992, 309-327.
"The Many Streams of a Great River:Art Along the Benue" catalog essay in Art Without Frontiers (the de la Burde Collection of African Art), ed. by Ekpo Eyo.Completed 1991(manuscript completed but catalog remains unpublished).
Afo and Afo-related entries in For Spirits and Kings; African Art from the Tishman Collection. Susan Vogel, ed. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, 152-3, 163-4.
Catalog essay and descriptions in James de Vere Allen and Sidney Kasfir. Islamic Decorative Arts of East Africa. Kampala: Nommo Gallery, 1969.
Conference or Invited Papers (representative list only)
"Thinking about artworlds in a global flow: some major disparities in dealing with visual culture", American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November 20-24, 2002
Response to Jens Holzhausen, Conference on the Greek Mysteries, Emory, 12-14 April 2002
"Tourist destinations in the Indian Ocean world : Orientalism and "warrior theatre" at the Swahili Coast ," Indian Ocean World conference, UCLA, April 5-6, 2002
"The African artist: shifting identities in the postcolonial world," National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, 27 October 2001 and University of California, Santa Barbara, 8 April 2002.
"Beyond shadows and mirrors: understanding locality in a globalized art discourse," Invited Plenary Paper, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde Tagung, Göttingen, Germany, 10 October 2001.
"Over here and back there: global approaches to understanding locality," Panel chair, Triennial Symposium in African Art, St Thomas, V.I. , April 28, 2001.
"Rethinking Connoisseurship." Lecture in honor of Merton J. Simpson, Clemson University, October 17, 1996.
"From Ivory to Plastic : Samburu and Turkana in Town." African Studies Program, Series on Popular Culture, Indiana University, September 20,1995. Subsequent revised versions delivered in Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, June and July 1996.
"Theorizing the Colonial Rupture in Artisanal Practice". Plenary session paper, Triennial Symposium in African Art, New York, April 20-23, 1995.
"Traders and Dealers in the Kenya Art Market. " Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Feb.5, 1995.
Honors, Fellowships and Grants (not including faculty development awards)
2003
Institute for Comparative and International Studies Research Grant, Emory University
1993-94
Rockefeller Residency Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies in The African Humanities, Northwestern University
1990-91
Social Science Research Council Grant (Kenya)
1989
National Endowment for the Humanities Travel Grant (Nigeria)
1986
American Philosophical Society Grant (Nigeria)
1980-81
Senior Associate Member, St. Antony's College, Oxford
Prior Teaching Experience
1985-89
Visiting Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College
African and Afro-American Studies Program, 1985-1989; Women's Studies Program, 1986-1989; Kenya Foreign Study Program co-director (Nairobi, Kenya), winter 1987, 1991
1976-78
Lecturer (African art and architecture), Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1975-76
Lecturer(African art, African civilization) Institute of African Studies, University of Jos, Nigeria
Museum Experience
1998-present
Faculty Curator of African Art, Carlos Museum, Emory University
1993-97
Curatorial consultant, African collections, Carlos Museum, Emory University
1979-80
Visiting Curator of Anthropology, Dartmouth College Museum, Hanover, New Hampshire
1976-78
Acting Curator, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
1974-75
Acting Curator of Anthropology, Dartmouth College Museum
1967-69
Managing Director and curator, Nommo Gallery
(nonprofit center for visual arts funded by Uganda Ministry of Culture and private philanthropy), Kampala
Recent Invited Lectures and Seminars
2003
Uganda Artists' Association, Kampala, Uganda
2002
Tulane University, New Orleans
Columbia University, New York
University of California, Santa Barbara
2001
National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC
Georg August Universität Göttingen, Germany
Iwalewa Haus, Universität Bayreuth, Germany
1999
University of Iowa
1996
Uganda Museum Society, Kampala, Uganda
National Gallery of Art, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Florida State University, Tallahassee
Clemson University
1995
Dartmouth College
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami Indiana University
1994
Northwestern University (3 presentations)
1993
St. Lawrence University (3rd annual C.L.R. James Lecture in African Studies)
1993
Haverford College
1992
University of Nairobi, Kenya
E. Carolina University
1991
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Harvard University
UCLA