I met Doran Ross during my first year of graduate school. I had been enrolled in a graduate class that researched and wrote chapters for the publication that accompanied the exhibition The Eloquent Dead: Ancestral Sculpture of Indonesia and Southeast Asia (1985). I do not know why I, of all the students in the class, was the one asked to work on the exhibition for what was then the Museum of Cultural History in the basement of Haines Hall. I do remember walking into Doran's office and being confronted with a large quiet man— at least that was my initial impression. He was definitely big but I was to find that he was not always quiet. He did not say much to me in that first meeting other than to explain what he wanted me to do and to escort me out the back door of his office into the...
Doran Ross, Our Mentor and Friend
Elisabeth L. Cameron is Professor of African Visual Culture in the History of Art and Visual Culture Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. As author of Art of the Lega: Meaning and Metaphor in Central Africa (2001) and Isn't S/He a Doll: Play and Ritual in African Sculpture (1996), she also curated the exhibitions that accompanied them. Cameron coedited Portraiture and Photography in Africa (2013) with John Peffer, and she specializes in Central African visual culture with a focus in gender, iconoclasm, and mission and colonial architecture. She acknowledges that, without the mentoring and friendship of Doran Ross, she could not have done any of these things. [email protected]
Christa Clarke is an independent curator and an affiliate of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University. She was the curator of the Arts of Global Africa at the Newark Museum for sixteen years. [email protected]
Courtnay Micots is Associate Professor of Art History in the Visual Arts program at Florida A & M University. She has worked in Ghana for over ten years as well as in the Republic of Benin, South Africa, England, and Brazil. Her research encompasses a variety of resistance art forms, including carnival, architecture and asafo flags. She is an NEH recipient, and her book Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana was published in June 2021. [email protected]
Scott M. Edmondson is Assistant Professor of Regional and Cultural Studies (Africa) at the Air Force Culture and Language Center, Air War College. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire and Fulbright-Hays Fellow in Ghana, he holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. [email protected]
Elisabeth L. Cameron is Professor of African Visual Culture in the History of Art and Visual Culture Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. As author of Art of the Lega: Meaning and Metaphor in Central Africa (2001) and Isn't S/He a Doll: Play and Ritual in African Sculpture (1996), she also curated the exhibitions that accompanied them. Cameron coedited Portraiture and Photography in Africa (2013) with John Peffer, and she specializes in Central African visual culture with a focus in gender, iconoclasm, and mission and colonial architecture. She acknowledges that, without the mentoring and friendship of Doran Ross, she could not have done any of these things. [email protected]
Christa Clarke is an independent curator and an affiliate of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Harvard University. She was the curator of the Arts of Global Africa at the Newark Museum for sixteen years. [email protected]
Courtnay Micots is Associate Professor of Art History in the Visual Arts program at Florida A & M University. She has worked in Ghana for over ten years as well as in the Republic of Benin, South Africa, England, and Brazil. Her research encompasses a variety of resistance art forms, including carnival, architecture and asafo flags. She is an NEH recipient, and her book Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana was published in June 2021. [email protected]
Scott M. Edmondson is Assistant Professor of Regional and Cultural Studies (Africa) at the Air Force Culture and Language Center, Air War College. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire and Fulbright-Hays Fellow in Ghana, he holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. [email protected]
Elisabeth L. Cameron, Christa Clarke, Courtnay Micots, Scott Edmondson; Doran Ross, Our Mentor and Friend. African Arts 2022; 55 (1): 64–67. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00637
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