My Account Log in

1 option

A dance of assassins : performing early colonial hegemony in the Congo / Allen F. Roberts.

LIBRA DT654 .R63 2013
Loading location information...

Available from offsite location This item is stored in our repository but can be checked out.

Log in to request item
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Roberts, Allen F., 1945-
Series:
African expressive cultures
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Ethnological museums and collections.
Hegemony.
History.
Belgians.
Colonization.
Democratic Republic of the Congo--Colonization.
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Congo (Democratic Republic)--History--To 1908.
Congo (Democratic Republic).
Storms, Émile Pierre Joseph, 1846-1918.
Storms, Émile Pierre Joseph.
Lusinga, approximately 1840-1884.
Lusinga.
Belgians--Congo (Democratic Republic)--History--19th century.
Hegemony--Congo (Democratic Republic)--History--19th century.
Ethnological museums and collections--Belgium.
Belgium.
Physical Description:
311 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm.
Place of Publication:
Bloomington ; Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 2013.
Summary:
A Dance of Assassins presents the competing histories of how Congolese Chief Lusinga and Belgian Lieutenant Storms engaged in a deadly clash while striving to establish hegemony along the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the 1880s. While Lusinga participated in the east African slave trade, Storm's secret mandate was to meet Henry Stanley's eastward march and trace " to legitimize King Leopold's audacious claim to the Congo. Confrontation was inevitable, and Lusinga lost his head. His skull became the subject of a sinister evolutionary treatise, while his ancestral figure is now considered a treasure of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Allen F. Roberts reveals the theatricality of early colonial encounter and how it continues to influence Congolese and Belgian understandings of history today. Book jacket.
Contents:
The "emperor" strikes back. Invitation to a beheading
A conflict of memories
Histories made by bodies
Tropical gothic
Storms the headhunter. Remembering the dismembered. The rise of a colonial macabre
Art évo on the Chaussée d'Ixelles
Lusinga's lasting laughs
Composing decomposition
Defiances of the dead.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-297) and index.
ISBN:
9780253007438
0253007437
9780253007506
025300750X
9780253007599
0253007593
OCLC:
773025040

The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.

My Account

Shelf Request an item Bookmarks Fines and fees Settings

Guides

Using the Library Catalog Using Articles+ Library Account