Glissant’s philosophy has more in common with Senghor’s than it has been acknowledged. The crux of both of their works is to challenge the modern universalist paradigm and its corollary, the ...invention of the other, through a radical critique of the limits of the essentialist understanding of the world based on roots and rootedness enabled by the modern teleological conception of time as snapshots. Glissant proposes to substitute the universalist modern paradigm with a conception of diversality based on a rhizomatic understanding of be-ing. Senghor, on the other hand, offers "métissage" as an alternative to the modern conception of the world as based on a European center and non-European peripheries. Both authors find in Bergson’s critique of time as snapshot and the conception of being as fix the epistemic tools to develop their theories. Glissant’s work is a resolute and uncompromising critique of Western imperialist invention of history, that is, the universalization of its provincial history and the silencing of all histories that constitute our diverse humanity. For Glissant, world History, as we know it, started with Europe’s imposition of the classical paradigm on the rest of the world. The provincial European history is, during this time, considered fundamentally universal and its science represented as constitutive of human progress.
Que peut apporter l’Afrique dans le dialogue entre les religions qui vise à instituer une paix civile mondiale? Comment le continent dont les élites gouvernantes et intellectuelles sont sous ...dépendance peut-il soutenir un projet d’identification et d’ouverture à l’autre comme une meilleure façon de le connaître, de favoriser la vie en bonne intelligence? Il s’agira dans cette contribution de situer l’enjeu des concepts de religion, de croyance et de dialogue dans la perspective de la bonne entente durable et à la lumière de l’humanisme qui est aujourd’hui dans le "collimateur."
Léopold Sédar Senghor's 1961 Speech at Oxford University is a provocative and critical intervention during what is generally considered to be a decolonisation period. It is a speech that engages ...across eras, and one from which we can glean insights on how to nourish ideas and modes of thinking that may be needed in this historical moment. With it, Senghor illustrates the importance of humanism for interlocutory dialogue, which is necessary to transcend delimiting and violent kinds of relations. This article deploys the idea of surreptitious speech to examine how Senghor makes these arguments in a crevice moment. I present a homologous reading of Senghor's speech using the lecture itself as a base with its three sections: 'Negritude as a Form of Humanism, 'The African Mode of Socialism', and 'Conclusion'. Atop the speech, this essay develops in five sections that mirror the re-imagining and the future imagining that Senghor accomplishes with his words. I suggest that this speech represents a vision of a humanistic, decolonial future that keeps alive the idea and the hope of a more universal universalism.
A cincuenta años de independencia de la mayoría de los países africanos, la cuestión de la relación entre los jóvenes estados y sus colonizadores permanece vital. Un corpus creativo de literatura y ...cine considerable examina el significado de la postcolonialidad tanto desde el punto de vista cronológico como teórico, por un lado, enfocándose en la representación de identidades a nivel cultural, y por otro, prestando atención a cuestiones materiales pragmáticas como el desarrollo económico y las formaciones políticas localesfrente a organizaciones mundiales. En el contexto hispanófono, la novela Rebeldía (1996), del escritor camerunés-español Inongo-vi-Makomé ofrece múltiples líneas de análisis de los dilemas postcoloniales de tres países: Camerún, Gabón y Guinea Ecuatorial, afirmando que la descolonización y el establecimiento de señas de identidad postcoloniales propias requieren la superación de la dependencia cultural del Occidente. En el ensayo de vi-Makomé titulado “Occidente como enfermedad”, el autor revisita en 2001 las propuestas políticas avanzadas en el mundo imaginario de la novela. Más recientemente, en su espacio en la red (www.inongovimakome.com), el autor publicó otro ensayo “Rebeldía 2”, en la que observa que la realidad geopolítica de los países mencionados en la novela ha empeorado, y por ello, proclama, es necesario actuar.¹ Tal como el explícito título de la novela indica, Makomé invita al sujeto africano a rebelarse contra esa deprimente realidad y buscar la salvación por, y dentro de sí mismo, dejando a un lado los modelos y “soluciones” externas. El africano tiene los recursos y habilidades para transformarse a sí mismo y el continente, y con ello, superar su subalternidad. Dado que esta ideología política se filtra en los cuentos, artículos, conferencias y novelas que ha producido en los últimos veinte años, este ensayo propone analizar la novela Rebeldía (1996) como la obra más representativa de su autor, enfocándose en sus características como un ejemplo de literatura de descolonización. La lectura que se hará de la novela es informada por el pensamiento anticolonial de Frantz Fanon y Walter Rodney, con quienes Makomé muestra muchos paralelos, además de las propuestas postcoloniales de Gayatri Spivak y Homi Bhabha, pero sobre todo dialogará con el discurso de descolonización, al que intelectuales como Senghor y Ngugi wa Thiongo han contribuido fuertemente en África. Al final afirmo que, insatisfecho con la falta de entendimiento y respeto ofrecidos a los sujetos africanos en España y en sus países originarios, Makomé apunta hacia un camino de dignificación en esta novela.
In this article, a postcolonial reading is undertaken of L'annonce faite a Marie (The annunciation of Mary), a 1912 play by Paul Claudel. Several celebrated authors from Africa and the Caribbean, ...belonging to the black postcolonial world, willingly acknowledge their debt to Paul Claudel, including Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Édouard Glissant and Saint-John Perse. Nevertheless, postcolonial theories generally exclude the study of Western and medieval works from the purview of postcolonial studies. It may thus appear paradoxical to propose a postcolonial reading of Claudel's play, written by a French playwright who does not belong to the colonized world. The play is furthermore set in the Middle Ages. However, many critics, mostly Anglo-Saxons, have successfully matched medieval texts and postcolonial studies. In fact, postcolonial theoretical tools are capable of casting new light on the study of L'Annonce faite a Marie, regarding, for example, relations of gender or power, marginalization and migration. Given Claudel's avowed impact on the literature of the black world, in view of the play's focus on situations of domination, the postcolonial approach may be legitimately applied to the study of LAnnonce faite a Marie, despite the 'medieval' particularities of this play.
Inutile ici de souligner que Léopold Sédar Senghor en tant qu’homme politique ainsi qu’homme de lettres est un des plus grands contributeurs à la revue "Présence Africaine." En effet, nous constatons ...au total 22 articles, chroniques et chants poétiques ou autres, que Senghor a publié dans la revue depuis son premier numéro en 1947 jusqu’en année 2002, à savoir l’année d’après son décès. Il serait également inutile d’ajouter que ses idées philosophiques exprimées en forme de la Négritude ont donné naissance à beaucoup d’articles et débats écrits par diverts auteurs et publiés dans la revue. Quant à Blaise Diagne, il est l’homme qui précède Senghor à peu près d’une génération. En effet, lorsque le tout jeune Senghor arriva à Paris pour les études dans un lycée parisien, il a eu comme correspondant un homme politique déjà célèbre en France qu’était Blaise Diagne. Et, ce Diagne, qui s’est donné tant de peine pour que les colonisés africains aient les mêmes droits civiques que les métropolitains, semble être un roi qui brille par son absence pour ne pas dire considéré comme une brebis galeuse pour la revue "Présence Africaine."
The concept of rationality is broad and has attracted elaborate, critical discussions by numerous philosophers and social thinkers over the years. A paper such as this is thus incapable of dealing ...exhaustively with the concept. Nonetheless, it attempts to interpret the Akan conception of rationality. It begins with an explanation of how rational beliefs and actions are determined in Akan thought, arguing that logical rules including some of the rules that apply without exception to any subject matter of thought are respected in the assessment of beliefs and actions in Akan culture. From this practical dimension of rationality, the paper proceeds to the conceptual sense of rationality where all humans are deemed as rational (irrespective of the way they act). Here, the paper shows how Akan conception of rationality encompasses or revolves around morality, pointing out that this moral foundation of rationality makes the Akan perspective quite different from that of the West, as particularly expressed by Aristotle. In spite of the conceptual inseparability of rationality from morality, Akan thought recognizes a practical separation and possible clash between the two. In such a situation, the latter is preferred. Finally, this paper corrects some misconceptions concerning rationality in African thought that undermine the basic rational cum moral identity of the human being held in Akan thought, in favor of emotional identity.
A broad conceptual categorization of the composite field of postcolonial cultural studies using some keywords from the work of Biodun Jeyifo. The article situates Jeyifo's work in that field and ...profiles in outline form some of his major unique contributions. Apart from perhaps Edward W. Said and Gayatri C. Spivak, there is no other scholar more attentive to the radically dispersed accents of thinking the postcolonial. If many have missed much of Jeyifo's efforts, it is no doubt because those efforts have come in the form of essays and articles rather than monographs.
Senghor a subi beaucoup d’influences. Elles ont été reconnues et avouées à la condition qu’elles confluent vers l’édification de son projet de la Négritude. D’ailleurs il se fait gloire d’avoir "subi ...des influences, beaucoup d’influences." Toutes cependant n’ont pas bénéficié du même traitement et du même intérêt de la part des commentateurs. Il en est ainsi de l’évocation par Senghor de Maurice Barrès comme figure formatrice de la Négritude. Dans les entretiens qu’il a accordés à Mohamed Aziza, publiés sous le titre : "La poésie de l’action" en 1980, Senghor affirme: J"’avais beaucoup subi l’influence de Barrès. C’est curieux, Barrès m’a fait connaître et aimer la France, mais en même temps, il a renforcé en moi le sentiment de la négritude, en mettant l’accent sur la race, du moins la nation."
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