<div>What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern <br>Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural <br>forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where <br>"modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? <br><br>Some of the essays in <i>Modernity and Its Malcontents</i> <br>address familiar anthropological issues--like witchcraft, <br>myth, and the politics of reproduction--but treat them in <br>fresh ways, situating them amidst the polyphonies of <br>contemporary Africa. Others explore distinctly <br>nontraditional subjects--among them the Nigerian popular <br>press and soul-eating in Niger--in such a way as to <br>confront the conceptual limits of Western social science. <br>Together they demonstrate how ritual may be powerfuly <br>mobilized in the making of history, present, and future. <br><br>Addressing challenges posed by contemporary African <br>realities, the authors subject such concepts as modernity, <br>ritual, power, and history to renewed critical scrutiny. <br>Writing about a variety of phenomena, they are united by a <br>wish to preserve the diversity and historical specificity of <br>local signs and practices, voices and perspectives. Their <br>work makes a substantial and original contribution toward the <br>historical anthropology of Africa. <br><br>The contributors, all from the Africanist circle at the <br>University of Chicago, are Adeline Masquelier, Deborah <br>Kaspin, J. Lorand Matory, Ralph A. Austen, Andrew Apter, <br>Misty L. Bastian, Mark Auslander, and Pamela G. Schmoll.<br><br></div>