Professor Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz will present an illustrated lecture at the Penn Museum at University of Pennsylvania on October 3rd, titled "Irresistible Logic: Rupestrian Art and Graphic Writing in the Kongo World."
Incorporating key examples gathered through fieldwork among the Kongo people in northern Angola, southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and within Kongo-based religious traditions in the Americas, Martínez-Ruiz argues that the myriad forms of communication known as Ndinga i Sinsu seamlessly integrate into a wide range of audio and visual communicative techniques that he terms “graphic writing systems.” Such systems also include proverbs, mambos, syncopated rhythms, and a large variety of written symbols, as well as oral traditions that are rich sources of cultural and social histories, religious beliefs, myths, and other expressions of the shared Bakongo worldview.
The College of Arts