Phenomenology in an African Context

Abraham Olivier is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare. He is the author of Being in Pain. M. John Lamola is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Technology at University of Johannesburg. He is the author of Sowing in Tears: A Documentary History of the Church Struggle Against Apartheid, 1960–1990. Justin Sands is Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, Extraordinary Fellow at North-West University, and Senior Lecturer at St. Augustine College of South Africa. He is the author of Reasoning from Faith: Fundamental Theology in Merold Westphal's Philosophy of Religion.

"In Africa, as in other formerly colonized areas of the world, the field of indigenous philosophy has been obscured by an imperial relation with Western philosophy. Subfields such as ontology, metaphysics, and epistemology have been eclipsed by political and socioeconomic philosophy. Among the major strengths of this book is the effective way in which it brings African phenomenology out from under this double cloud of invisibility." — Paget Henry, author of Shouldering Antigua and Barbuda: The Life of V. C. Bird"This volume usefully sees phenomenology not just as a foreign philosophical method but also as a way of understanding that African philosophy has been engaging in and which it has something to contribute to." — Bruce B. Janz, author of African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: The Space of Thought

• Introduction Abraham Olivier, M. John Lamola, and Justin SandsPart 1: Origin, Methodology, and Scope 1. African Phenomenology—What Is That? Abraham Olivier2. Some Reflections from Africana Phenomenology on African Phenomenology Lewis R. Gordon3. Why Husserl in Africa? Autobiographical Reflections Paulin J. Hountondji4. Hountondji and Husserl: Subjectivity, Responsibility, and Phenomenology in the Critique of Ethnophilosophy Patrick Eldridge5. Philosophical Universality in Crisis: Hountondji's Interruption of Husserlian PhenomenologyCarmen De SchryverPart 2: Consciousness, Identity, Existence, and Embodiment 6. Chabani Manganyi: The Lived Experience of Difference Mabogo Percy More7. A Post-Sartrean Reflection on Being Black in the World: Reading Steve Biko through Slavoj Žižek M. John Lamola8. Blackness as a Conundrum for PhenomenologyKeolebogile Mbebe and Thabang Dladla 9. Merleau-Ponty, Embodied Subjectivity, and (White) Women Dancing Rianna Oelofsen10. The Experience of Community and the Meaningful Life Ada AgadaPart 3: Art, Culture, Language, Politics, and Liberation 11. Savage Objects: On the Restitution of Alienated Meaning Achille Mbembe12. On the Phenomenology of a Shared World in Achille Mbembe Schalk Gerber13. The Voice of African Philosophy Tsenay Serequeberhan14. Communal Space, Communal Temporality: Kwasi Wiredu and Henri Bergson in Dialogue Justin Sands15. Artifacts of Emotion and Existence in Unjust Structures Uchenna Okeja16. Experience and Text: Toward an African-Language Phenomenology Alena RettováContributors Index