The Department of Anthropology, Department of History, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature and Art and Culture Studies Presents “Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo” with Dr. Yolanda Covington-Ward, Asst. Professor, Africana Studies and Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
Abstract: In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as a conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo's troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and en- force power.