Henry John Drewal

An apprenticeship with a Yoruba sculptor in Nigeria transformed his life and led him to interdisciplinary studies at Columbia University in African art history and culture. Since 1991 he has been the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His published works include many articles, books, and catalogues including: Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent; Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought; Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yoruba Universe; Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and its Diasporas; Sacred Waters: Arts for Mami Wata and Other Divinities in Africa and the Diaspora; and most recently, Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths. Since 1990, he has been exploring the role of the senses and sense-abilities in shaping arts, persons, cultures and histories using his approach called Sensiotics 

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