The Surreptitious Speech
Presence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness 1947-1987
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9780226545066
The Surreptitious Speech
Presence Africaine and the Politics of Otherness 1947-1987
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.
Table of Contents
Preface Letter
Foreword: Presence AfricaineIntroduction
Pt. 1 - Text and Context
1. Presence Africaine: Geography of an "Ideology"
2. Conjugating Cultural Realities: Presence Africaine
3. Out of Africa! Should We De Done with Africanism?
Pt. 2 - The Question of an African History
4. Presence Africaine: History and Historians of Africa
5. Presence Africaine as Historiography: Historicity of Societies and Specificity of Black African Culture
6. The Shadow of Cheikh Anta Diop
7. Myth, Epic, and African History
Pt. 3 - Alienation, Voices, and Writing
8. Alienation and Disalienation: Themes of Yesterday, Promises of Tomorrow
9. Presence Africaine: A Voice in the Wilderness, a Record of Black Kinship
10. Harlem Renaissance and Africa: An Ambiguous Adventure
11. If the Dead Could Only Speak! Reflections on Texts by Niger, Hughes, and Fodeba
12. In Praise of Alienation
Pt. 4 - Philosophy and the Practice of Everyday Life
13. Inventing an African Practice in Philosophy: Epistemological Issues
14. Recapturing
15. French Marxist Anthropology of the 1960s and African Studies: Outline for an Appraisal
16. Practical Ideology and Ideological Practice: On African Episteme and Marxian Problematic—Ilparakuyo Maasai Transformations
17. Formulating Modern Thought in African Languages: Some Theoretical Considerations
18. The African University: Evaluation and Perspectives
19. Daily Life in Black Africa: Elements for a Critique
Pt. 5 - A Dialogue on Presence Africaine
20. Historic Witnesses
21. Analysts
Pt. 6 - Conclusions
22. The Politics of "Othering": A Discussion
The Word Delivered
A Question of Taste
On Speaking and Hearing: Toward a Free and Liberating Discourse
Alioune Diop and the Unfinished Temple of Knowledge
23. Finale
Contributors
Index
Foreword: Presence AfricaineIntroduction
Pt. 1 - Text and Context
1. Presence Africaine: Geography of an "Ideology"
2. Conjugating Cultural Realities: Presence Africaine
3. Out of Africa! Should We De Done with Africanism?
Pt. 2 - The Question of an African History
4. Presence Africaine: History and Historians of Africa
5. Presence Africaine as Historiography: Historicity of Societies and Specificity of Black African Culture
6. The Shadow of Cheikh Anta Diop
7. Myth, Epic, and African History
Pt. 3 - Alienation, Voices, and Writing
8. Alienation and Disalienation: Themes of Yesterday, Promises of Tomorrow
9. Presence Africaine: A Voice in the Wilderness, a Record of Black Kinship
10. Harlem Renaissance and Africa: An Ambiguous Adventure
11. If the Dead Could Only Speak! Reflections on Texts by Niger, Hughes, and Fodeba
12. In Praise of Alienation
Pt. 4 - Philosophy and the Practice of Everyday Life
13. Inventing an African Practice in Philosophy: Epistemological Issues
14. Recapturing
15. French Marxist Anthropology of the 1960s and African Studies: Outline for an Appraisal
16. Practical Ideology and Ideological Practice: On African Episteme and Marxian Problematic—Ilparakuyo Maasai Transformations
17. Formulating Modern Thought in African Languages: Some Theoretical Considerations
18. The African University: Evaluation and Perspectives
19. Daily Life in Black Africa: Elements for a Critique
Pt. 5 - A Dialogue on Presence Africaine
20. Historic Witnesses
21. Analysts
Pt. 6 - Conclusions
22. The Politics of "Othering": A Discussion
The Word Delivered
A Question of Taste
On Speaking and Hearing: Toward a Free and Liberating Discourse
Alioune Diop and the Unfinished Temple of Knowledge
23. Finale
Contributors
Index