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African and African Diaspora Collections

Michigan State University is the home of the largest and one of the finest African Studies Programs in the nation. The many significant research, service, and educational activities in Africa of faculty, staff, and students have included a range of disciplinary interests and engagements from assisting in the development of the University of Nigeria (the first land-grant university in Africa) and U.S. national leadership of the divestiture movement that directly impacted the downfall of South Africa's apartheid government. MSU was also the home of the African Diaspora Research Project, established in 1986 by the late Dr. Ruth Simms Hamilton, who pioneered the study of the African diaspora when the notion of "diaspora" was a relatively obscure concept.

Because of this exceptional concentration of scholars and educators working in Africa and with African students, the university has developed a significant collection of African and African diasporic materials. The majority of the material culture collections and archival holdings related to those collections are housed at the Michigan State University Museum; books and archival collections are held at the MSU Library.

The collections represent a wide range of cultures and countries from the continent of Africa and is particularly strong in material from Nigeria, Liberia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Niger, Somalia and South Africa. The African diasporic collections include materials from all over the world. Collections include household implements and furnishings; objects used in food preparation and storage; tools and weapons; musical instruments and other objects of leisure; ceremonial objects; objects of personal adornment; clothing and textiles; currency and trade goods; and objects made to express individual creativity or to make statements about political and social issues such as apartheid, war, human rights, or the AIDS epidemic. Examples of materials include important collection of Doko textiles, an exceptional collection of sowei masks from Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ethiopian paintings dating from the 1930s, Tuareg metalwork from Niger, and Zulu traditional and creative beadwork from the beginning of the 21st century.

The collection is an invaluable resource for researchers of many scholarly disciplines but particularly those relating to art history, anthropology, folklore, sociology, and history. The collection is also regularly used in exhibitions, publications, and teaching. A small portion of the collection is on long-term exhibition in the MSU Museum and the Kresge Art Museum.

Donors and Fieldworkers

Dr. Raymond Silverman, Dr. Neal Sobania, Dr. Cernyw and Morna Kline, Dr. George and Nancy Axinn, Dr. Simon Ottenberg, Fred Ferris, Anton Bos, Robert Bartlett and H.H. Burgess, James Ellison, Dr. Jean Brown, Robert Bartlett, H.H. Burgess, Dr. C. Kurt Dewhurst, Dr. Marsha MacDowell, John Beck, Dr. Joe Druse, Dr. Jon Abbink, Dr. Marco Bassi, Elisabeth Biasio, Girma Fisseha, Dr. Alula Pankhurst, Worku Nida, Dr. Tsehai Berhane-Selassie, William Mithoefer, Marit Dewhurst, Kate Wells, Barbara Porter- Spaulding, Robert Zigler, Virginia Artis.

Exhibitions

"African Connections: Perspectives on Collecting Culture," Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, Jan. 31, 1999 - Sept. 5, 1999. [see Raymond Silverman, http://museum.msu.edu/Exhibitions/Virtual/AfCon/ (28 March 1999) for more information on collectors of African material for MSU Museum], "African Art: Western Eyes," Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, 2005-2011,

"Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity," Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, July 24 - December 16, 1994; Dillard University Art Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 8 - December 8, 1995.

"Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory," Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, 2005; Erie Art Museum, Erie, Pennsylvania, 2005; Design Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 2005; Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, 2006; Hostos Center for Arts and Culture, Bronx, New York, 2006; Institute for Community Research, Hartford, Connecticut, 2006; University Galleries, School for Arts, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, 2007.

Publications

Raymond A. Silverman. Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Museum, 1994.

Robert Glew and Raymond Silverman. "Drinking the Word of God: Expressions of Faith and the Search for Well-Being in Two West African Communities," [virtual exhibition] http://museum.msu.edu/Exhibitions/Virtual/DrinkingtheWordofGod/ (January 2002)

Raymond A. Silverman. "African Connections Perspectives on Collecting Culture," [virtual exhibition] http://museum.msu.edu/Exhibitions/Virtual/AfCon/ (Jan. 6, 2003)

Raymond A. Silverman. "Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity," [virtual exhibition] http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~etoc (24 September 1998).

Raymond A. Silverman. ed. Ethiopian Traditions of Creativity. University of Washington Press and Michigan State University Museum, 1999.

Raymond A. Silverman. Expressions of Africa: Selections from the Museum Collections of Michigan State University. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Museum with Kresge Art Museum and African Studies Center, 1989.

Marsha MacDowell, ed. Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Museum in collaboration with Vermont Folklife Center and City Lore.