Is African Art History?

(excerpt from essay by Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie and John Peffer, co-editors of Critical Interventions)
The question of value is topical because the generic undervaluing of African arts, cultures, and knowledge systems contributes directly to the minimal support given to its discourses by institutional funders and publishers. Critical Interventions engages the current crisis in academic publishing by offering a novel platform for advanced writing on African art. Publishing on African art is increasingly characterized by the production of patron-oriented picture books and generic anthologies, while fewer research-oriented or critically minded essays of substantial length have appeared in academic journals. Major academic presses now decline to publish intensive studies of African art unless printing costs are independently subsidized or they appeal to a popular audience such as the market for books related to African Diaspora issues. The deserving attention focused on Diaspora contexts is commendable, but unfortunately it seems to provide an additional basis for the marginalization of continental Africa. Funding for doctoral and post-doctoral work in African art has also diminished and, increasingly, only a small number of individuals working on “safe” topics, or well-established scholars are granted the opportunity to continue substantive fieldwork or to see their research into print. This climate of reduced publishing and funding opportunities curtails in-depth original and independent scholarship on African art from all eras. The situation truncates the aspirations of those anticipating a career in the field, and it jeopardizes the tenure prospects of younger scholars. The result is paradoxical: at the exact moment that the field is poised to become more fully art historical it is also threatened with extinction.

Critical Interventions promises to be "the principal site of discursive engagement for the field
of African art history in this century." You have to formally subscribe to read most articles but the site's worth a look, http://www.aachron.com/editions/critical_interventions/ci_index.html