Complicities explores the complicated—even contradictory—position of the intellectual who takes a stand against political policies and ideologies. Mark Sanders argues that intellectuals cannot avoid some degree of complicity in what they oppose and that responsibility can only be achieved with their acknowledgment of this complicity. He examines the role of South African intellectuals by looking at the work of a number of key figures—both supporters and opponents of apartheid....

A prominent francophone thinker and writer from sub-Saharan Africa, V. Y. Mudimbe is known for his efforts to bridge Western and African modes of knowledge and for his critiques of a range of disciplines, from classics and philosophy to anthropology and comparative literature. The Mudimbe Reader offers for the first time a ground-breaking work of modern intellectual African history from this essential postcolonial thinker, including new translations of essays previously unavailabl...

It is perhaps significant that the contemporary cultural effervescence that has come to the fore began to unfold in the context of the longest - and deepest - economic crises which the African continent has known since the period after the Second World War and which started in earnest in the late 1970s and early 1980s. What is particularly interesting is that while practically every indicator of economic development was declining in nominal and/or real terms for most of the continent, cult...

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, a...

Images of Africa challenges the widely-held idea that Africans are powerless in the creation of self-image. It explores the ways in which image creation is a process of negotiation entered into by a wide range of actors within and beyond the continent – in presidents’ offices and party HQs, in newsrooms and rural authorities, in rebel militia bases and in artists’ and writers’ studies.Its ten chapters, written by scholars working across the continent and a range of disciplines, dev...

Moving world-systems analysis into the cultural realm, Richard E. Lee locates the cultural studies movement within a broad historical and geopolitical framework. He illuminates how order and conflict have been reflected and negotiated in the sphere of knowledge production by situating the emergence of cultural studies at the intersection of post–1945 international and British politics and a two-hundred-year history of conservative critical practice. Tracing British criticism from the perio...

"... 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 Supplem...

Valentin-Yves Mudimbe is a Congolese philosopher, novelist, poet, essayist, and academic, widely considered to be one of the most important African thinkers of his generation. The ideas and arguments he has developed in his writings since the 1970s, including The Invention of Africa, have been hugely influential across many disciplines and established his reputation as one of the essential postcolonial thinkers of our time.In The Scent of the Father, Mudimbe set h...

Dispossession describes the condition of those who have lost land, citizenship, property, and a broader belonging to the world. This thought-provoking book seeks to elaborate our understanding of dispossession outside of the conventional logic of possession, a hallmark of capitalism, liberalism, and humanism. Can dispossession simultaneously characterize political responses and opposition to the disenfranchisement associated with unjust dispossession of land, economic and political power, ...

Encyclopedia of PhilosophyTABLE OF CONTENTS: I. Introduction II. Branches of Philosophy III. Schools of Thoughts IV. Political Philosophy V. Ancient Philosophy VI. Medieval Philosophy VII. Modern Philosophy List of Philosophers Glossary I. IntroductionIntroduction: Western philosophy Philosophical doctrines Ethics and political philosophy in the West Applied philosophy Eastern philosophy African philosophyEastern and Western Philosophy: Eastern WesternHistory of Western Philosophy: Ancient...

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life. Legal philosophy, or jurisprudence, explores the notion of law and its role in society, illuminating its meaning and its relation to the universal questions of justice, rights, and morality. In this Very Short Introduction Raymond Wacks analyses the nature and purpose of the legal system, and the practice by courts, lawyers, and judges. Wacks reveals the intriguing and challenging nature of legal philosophy wit...

Offering an insight into African culture that had not been portrayed before, Things Fall Apart is both a tragic and moving story of an individual set in the wider context of the coming of colonialism, as well as a powerful and complex political statement of cross-cultural encounters.This guide to Chinua Achebe’s compelling novel offers:an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of Things Fall Aparta critical history, surveying the ...