V. Y. Mudimbe - Böcker

" . . . groundbreaking . . . clear, straightforward, and economical. . . . seminal . . . " —American Anthropologist"This is a challenging book . . . a remarkable contribution to African intellectual history." —International Journal of African Historical Studies"Mudimbe's description of the struggles over Africa's self-invention are vivid and rewarding. From Blyden to Sartre, Temples to Senghor, Mudimbe provides a bold and versatile resume of Africa's literary inventors." —Village Voice Literary Supplement" . . . a landmark achievement in African studies." —Journal of Religion in AfricaIn this unique and provocative book, Zairean philosopher and writer V. Y. Mudimbe addresses the multiple scholarly discourses that exist—African and non-African—concerning the meaning of Africa and being African.

African Studies, contrary to some accounts, is not a separate continent in the world of American higher education. Its intellectual borders touch those of economics, literature, history, philosophy and art; its history is the story of the world, both ancient and modern. This is the clear conclusion of "Africa and the Disciplines", a book that addresses the question: Why should Africa be studied in the American university? This question was put to distinguished scholars in the social sciences and humanities, prominent Africanists who are also leaders in their various disciplines. Their responses make a strong case for the importance of research on Africa to the academy. Paul Collier's essay, for example, shows how studies of African economies have clarified our understanding of the small open economies, and contributed to the theory of repressed inflation and to a number of areas in microeconomics as well. Art historian Suzanne Blier uses the terms and concepts that her discipline has applied to Africa to analyze the habits of mind and social practice of her own field. Christopher I.Miller describes the confounding and enriching impact of Africa on European and American literary theory. Political scientist Richard Sklar outlines Africa's contributions to the study of political modernization, pluralism, and rational choice. These essays, together with others from scholars in history, anthropology, philosophy, and comparative literature, attest to the influence of African research throughout the curriculum. Contributors are Paul Collier, Sally Falk Moore, Richard L. Sklar, Steven Feierman, Susan Blier, Christopher L. Miller, and Kwame Anthony Appiah, in addition to the editors.

Distinguished scholar V. Y. Mudimbe assembles a lively tribute to Presence Africaine, the landmark African studies journal begun in 1947 Paris. While it celebrates the project's forty-year history, The Surreptitious Speech does not naively canonize the journal but rather offers a vibrant discussion and critical reading of its context, characteristics, and significance.

". . . this is a remarkable book. It will occupy a significant place in the critical literature of African Studies." —International Journal of African Historical Studies"To read Mudimbe is to walk through a museum of many exhibits in the company of an erudite companion who explains, with much learned commentary, what you are seeing." —American Anthropologist"Mudimbe's sympathetic yet rigorous accounts of such diverse Africanist discourses as Herskovits's cultural relativism and contemporary Afrocentricity bring to the surface the underlying goals and contexts in which these were produced." —Ivan KarpA sequel to his highly acclaimed The Invention of Africa, this is V. Y. Mudimbe's exploration of how the "idea" of Africa was constructed by the Western world.

This volume investigates the concepts of nation, identity, and culture as they have evolved within the contexts of exile and as a result of the consolidation of the ethnic and the political. The contributors explore various theoretical issues involved in reconfiguring these concepts since the nineteenth century, as well as the manifestations of these issues in specific regions of the world.Examining the degree to which twentieth-century representations of colonization, revolution, and modernity are nineteenth-century constructs, Nations, Identities, Cultures locates contemporary political thought in an ethos of exile, nostalgic for bygone places and cultures of the nineteenth century. The contributors interrogate the significance of changes in the way the political is conceptualized and the impact of shifting representations of political society on our understanding of nation, identity, and culture. Approaches to these issues range from broad perspectives on global culture, civil society, liberalism, and dialectical identity to specific case studies on the politics of Quebec, the Russian muzhik, Israel’s borders, the ancient Greek origins of European culture, Kongo nationalism, the women of Lebanon, and the Danish/Swedish border. Contributors. Martin Bernal, Dominique Colas, Miriam Cooke, Daphna Golan, Thomas Lahusen, Jocelyn LÉtourneau, Anders Linde-Laursen, Wyatt MacGaffey, John McCumber, V. Y. Mudimbe, Kenneth Surin, Immanuel Wallerstein

This book explores African religious practice and its relation to African identity. It takes the problem of faith as its central theme, emphasizing the particular existential tensions dividing yet uniting the Christian and the African. Drawing on Heidegger and Sartre, it analyses these tensions underlying and creating the dialogues of hybridity or metissage.

This comprehensive encyclopedia presents African thinkers, concepts and traditions, with a focus on African religious and philosophical practices. It also recognizes the determining role of the Diaspora in understanding African traditions and African identity.