This is one of several types of Yaka masks which are worn in dances celebrating the emergence of young initiates from the circumcision camp (nkanda ). It is intended to be carried as a dance wand rather than worn as a mask, and is only held...
Large and dramatic masks like this first attracted the attention of collectors and students of African art to the Yaka. The most numerousYaka mask types are those intended to be worn by adolescents and their tutors and exhibited to the public in...
Bestselling author William Lashner, an alumnus of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, reads from the seventh of his Victor Carl thrillers, "A Killer's Kiss."
The latest volume in Lashner's series about a Philadelphia district attorney...
Chinese author Danyan Chen begins this panel discussion by talking about growing up during the cultural revolution of Shanghai. She explains that growing up in such turbulent times gave her the desire to uncover hidden truths and share them with...
Elena Bossi's discussion of "Writing as Philosophy and Craft" focuses on pseudonymity in fiction, titling her talk "The Names of the Other." Chris Chryssopoulos recalls philosophies of Jorge Luis Borges, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, but...
Marjorie Celona reads from her first novel, Y. This highly acclaimed and exquisitely rendered debut is about, Shannon, a wise-beyond-her-years foster child who was abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Yet Shannon defines life...