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
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
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
ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht
every day

“Living in contradictions is what we experience every day. Why do we know so little about it?”

Gisela Febel
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka