African Masks and Emotions: In Theory and in Practice

Available January 2026

Z. S. Strother

In this open-access text, Z. S. Strother uses ethnographic studies of individual mask cultures in Africa to dispute the assumptions that masks universally hide, reveal, or transform.

In Western European languages, the word mask exerts a powerful presence as a figure of speech. To masquerade is to pretend to be someone or something one is not. By extension, unmasking is a heroic metaphor for exposing a hidden truth. In this volume, art historian Z. S. Strother counters that narrative, using African case studies to offer an alternative vision of masquerading. She explores the aesthetic emotions aroused by masks, or more precisely, by “dances of masks”: joy, wonder, awe, fear, and the release of laughing out loud. She also investigates the uncanny—a sensation of “delicious shiveriness” triggered when familiar spaces and individuals become strange and changeable. Inspired by Strother’s studies in Congo-Kinshasa, African Masks and Emotions takes a comparative perspective and moves emotion from the periphery to the center of analysis.

Z. S. Strother is the Riggio Professor of African Art at Columbia University.

160 pages
6 x 8 1/4 inches
25 color and 9 b/w illustrations
ISBN 978-1-60606-993-6
paperback

Getty Publications
Imprint: Getty Research Institute
Series: Getty Research Institute Council Lecture Series

2026