Possibilities and Limits of a Decolonized Anthropology from the Perspective of African Philosophy

Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University & WoC Guest Professor) & Tyler Zoanni (U Bremen)

05/23/2024 6:15 pm –7:45 pm

U Bremen GRA2 0030 & online

In this dialogue with renowned philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne, we will take up central themes in his work and connect them to ongoing conversations about anthropology and decolonization. Topics include: language and life, the postcolonial and the decolonial, Africa in/and the world, philosophy and anthropology. The session will begin with an interview and conversation with Diagne and then open the dialogue to the audience.

Part of the lecture series “Decolonizing Anthropology”.

Please register for digital participation:

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Suggested reading:

Diagne, Souleymane Bachir. 2018. Decolonizing the history of philosophy (Anton Wilhelm Amo Lectures Vol. 4). Halle (Saale): Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

Back to overview
Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart
space

“According to Niklas Luhmann, space is a ‘special facility to negate contradictions’”.

Julia Lossau
limits

“Resistance is a democratic right, sometimes a duty. With literature we can find models for this right and think about its limits.”

Gisela Febel
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
idea of democratic critique

“If you think that acts of contradicting someone always need to point to better solutions, you haven’t really understood the idea of democratic critique.”

Martin Nonhoff