Afrocentricity

The essential volume on Afrocentricity-its foundations, applications, and global reach.

Afrocentricity: Generations of Theory in Practice is a landmark scholarly volume that affirms Afrocentricity as a theoretical approach and as a lived, generational, and global commitment to centering African agency, knowledge systems, and liberation. Edited by Dr. Aaron X. Smith and featuring a powerful foreword by cultural theorist Dr. Christel N. Temple, this book charts the legacy, application, and future of Afrocentric thought across disciplines and borders.

Rooted in the pioneering work of Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, this collection convenes the voices of major Afrocentric scholars across continents, each of whom demonstrates the enduring power of Afrocentricity as a framework for personal, pedagogical, political, and philosophical transformation. These research articles are both theory, operationalized frameworks, and testimonies of praxis. They reflect how Afrocentricity is applied in academic research embedded in Legal Studies, Africana Studies, Communication, Political Science and Business school programs.

The international contributions from Dr. Simphiwe Sesanti of South Africa, whose work embodies Afrocentric journalism and African ethics; Dr. Abu Sayeed Noman who advances the Afrocentric paradigm through language and literature; and Dr. Ricardo Matheus Benedicto of Brazil, who offers a resounding afterword bridging Afrocentric practice with working-class Black communities in Latin America. This volume insists that Afrocentricity is a worldwide project of resistance and rehumanization.

Afrocentricity: Generations of Theory in Practice stands as a critical expansion demonstrating how generations of scholars have taken up the torch of Afrocentricity to confront colonial legacies and reclaim African intellectual sovereignty, from theory, protest and policymaking.

Fifty years ago, Afrocentricity emerged rooted in agency. Today its relevance is rooted in the future.

Dr. Smith currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University. He is the author of The Murder of Octavius Catto (featured in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia 2015). Smith has also published multiple entries in the Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage (2015) and a chapter on James Baldwin titled, "Boundless Baldwin" recently published in, Contemporary Critical Thought in Africology and Africana Studies. His innovative artistic presentation style has gained him the name, "The Rapping Professor". During his short tenure at Temple University, Dr. Smith has quickly been recognized as a dynamic and innovative speaker, educator, artist and facilitator who utilizes his vast wealth of knowledge, uncanny energy and unique oratorical abilities to translate Hip-Hop culture into a universal language of leadership, learning and love.