This two-part First Word offers perspectives on the world we find ourselves in as Africanist art historians, as we continue to move through an extraordinarily unsettling, unpredictable period. Our shared academic discipline encourages us to think about masks as essential cultural expressions. Do art historical insights into masks and masquerades help us to think about masks of other varieties in a pandemic world? How has our pandemic world shed light on the challenges of conducting research abroad? In what follows, two members of the UNC Editorial Board contemplate these questions. Part 1 was contributed by Victoria L. Rovine, part 2 by Lisa Homann.
As I write this First Word, in the midst of yet another twist in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, masks have been on my mind. As mask mandates are lifted, reimposed, and debated, one yearns for an end to the disease, the discord, and...