V. Y. Mudimbe

Last updated

Valentin-Yves Mudimbe (born 8 December 1941, Jadotville, Belgian Congo) is a Congolese philosopher, professor, and author of poems, novels, as well as books and articles on African culture and intellectual history. [1] Mudimbe is Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of Romance Studies and professor of comparative literature at Duke University and maître de conferences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. [2]

Contents

Early life and career

He was born in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a young man, he joined a monastery, but left in 1962 in order to study the forces that shaped African history. He studied in Louvain (PhD, 1970), came back to Congo and flew to the United States in 1979 for political reasons. He has taught at Haverford College and Stanford University, and is now Professor Emeritus in the Program in Literature at Duke University. [3] His work has had a major impact on many disciplines including African studies, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Literature, and History.

Work

Mudimbe's work is considered as highly influential for African studies, notably for his major book The Invention of Africa (1988). [4] His writings transformed the intellectual history of Africa by challenging the dominant historic reconstruction of Greek philosophy which according to him was racialised. The influence of Mudimbe's writings for African studies was compared to that of Edward Said's book Orientalism for postcolonial studies. [5] Mudimbe showed that without critiquing the epistemologies which were the basis of the discourses about Africa critical approaches can become fruitless. [6] He received the Herskovits Award given by African Studies Association in 1989.

Mudimbe focuses most closely on phenomenology, structuralism, mythical narratives, and the practice and use of language. As a professor, he has taught courses on these topics, as well as on ancient Greek cultural geography.

Education

Books

Novels
Essays

Secondary literature

In English
In French

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinshasa</span> Capital and the largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kinshasa, formerly named Léopoldville until June 30, 1966, is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one of the world's fastest-growing megacities. Kinshasa's 2024 population was estimated at 17,032,322. It is the most densely populated city in the DRC, the most populous city in Africa, the world's fourth-most-populous capital city, Africa's third-largest metropolitan area, and the leading economic, political, and cultural center of the DRC. Kinshasa houses several industries, including manufacturing, telecommunications, banking, and entertainment. The city also hosts some of DRC's significant institutional buildings, such as the Palais du Peuple, Palais de la Nation, Court of Cassation, Constitutional Court, Cité de l'Union Africaine, Palais de Marbre, Stade des Martyrs, Immeuble du Gouvernement, Kinshasa Financial Center, and multiple federal departments and agencies.

Négritude is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in the African diaspora during the 1930s, aimed at raising and cultivating "black consciousness" across Africa and its diaspora. Négritude gathers writers such as sisters Paulette and Jeanne Nardal, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, Abdoulaye Sadji, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Négritude intellectuals disavowed colonialism, racism and Eurocentrism. They promoted African culture within a framework of persistent Franco-African ties. The intellectuals employed Marxist political philosophy, in the black radical tradition. The writers drew heavily on a surrealist literary style, and some say they were also influenced somewhat by the Surrealist stylistics, and in their work often explored the experience of diasporic being, asserting one's self and identity, and ideas of home, home-going and belonging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheikh Anta Diop</span> Senegalese politician, historian and scientist (1923–1986)

Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the theory of Afrocentricity, though he himself never described himself as an Afrocentrist. The questions he posed about cultural bias in scientific research contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study of African civilizations.

Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji Madiya, is a Congolese poet and writer. She was born in Tshofa, Kabinda District in the Belgian Congo. Albert S. Gérard calls her "the first poet of real significance" among a group of African writers who emerged in the late 1960s; she was also the first female writer in the Belgian Congo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Kinshasa</span> Public university in Democratic Republic of the Congo

The University of Kinshasa, colloquially known as UNIKIN, is a public university located in Kinshasa's Lemba commune within the western region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the country's premier university. Initially established in 1954 as Lovanium University during Belgian colonial rule, the current university was established following the division of the National University of Zaire (UNAZA) in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Achille Mbembe</span> Cameroonian historian, postcolonial theorist and political scientist

Joseph-Achille Mbembe, known as Achille Mbembe, is a Cameroonian historian, political theorist, and public intellectual who is a research professor in history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economy Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is well known for his writings on colonialism and its consequences and is a leading figure in new wave French critical theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lovanium University</span> Catholic university that was the first in the Belgian Congo

Lovanium University was a Catholic university in Kinshasa in the Belgian Congo. The university was established in 1954 on the Kimwenza plateau, near Kinshasa. The university continued to function after independence until it was merged into the National University of Zaire in 1971. It can be considered an antecedent of the University of Kinshasa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Marc Ela</span> Cameroonian sociologist and theologian

Jean-Marc Ela was a Cameroonian sociologist and theologian. Working variously as a diocesan priest and a professor, Ela was the author of many books on theology, philosophy, and social sciences in Africa. His most famous work, African Cry has been called the "soundest illustration" of the spirit of liberation theology in sub-Saharan Africa. His works are widely cited as exemplary of sub-Saharan African Christian theology for their focus on contextualisation and their emphasis on community-centered approaches to theology.

<i>Présence Africaine</i> Pan-African cultural, political and literary magazine

Présence Africaine is a pan-African quarterly cultural, political, and literary magazine, published in Paris, France, and founded by Alioune Diop in 1947. In 1949, Présence Africaine expanded to include a publishing house and a bookstore on rue des Écoles in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The journal was highly influential in the Pan-Africanist movement, the decolonisation struggle of former French colonies, and the birth of the Négritude movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buata Malela</span>

Buata Bundu Malela is a specialist in comparative literature and historian of the intellectuals of the Afro-West-Indian diaspora. He was born in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1979 to Congolese and Senegalese parents.

Daniel P. Biebuyck was a Belgian scholar of Central African art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National University of Zaire</span> Former university in Zaire (1971–81)

The National University of Zaire was a federated university in Zaire which existed between 1971 and 1981.

Pius Ngandu Nkashama was a professor, writer, playwright, poet and literary critic. He was born September 4, 1946 in Mbujimayi in the province of Kasai Oriental in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He died on December 19, 2023 in Baton-Rouge, Louisiana, US.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alf Schwarz</span> A Canadian sociologist

Alf Schwarz was a Canadian sociologist noted for his research in Sub-Saharan Africa. After studies at the Sorbonne (Paris) with Raymond Aron, Pierre Bourdieu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roger Bastide, Georges Balandier and research assignment at Université de Dakar (Senegal), he began his academic career in 1963 with a faculty position at the Institut de recherches économiques et sociales of Université Lovanium. He joined in 1966 Université Laval as professor of sociology. He founded at Laval University the first academic program in African studies in French speaking Canada. As one of the pioneers of African studies in Canada he was decidedly involved in the creation of the Canadian Association of African Studies and edited for many years the Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines. He retired from Laval University in 1998. He died in Natal, Brazil in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Lihau</span> Congolese jurist, law professor and politician

Marcel Antoine Lihau or Ebua Libana la Molengo Lihau was a Congolese jurist, law professor and politician who served as the inaugural First President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo from 1968 until 1975, and was involved in the creation of two constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Nicolas Abel Bayona Ba Meya or Bayona Ba Meya Muna Kimvimba was a Congolese jurist who served as First President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Zaire from 1975 until 1983.

Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, is a Congolese historian and linguist. He is the author of several essays, studies and other publications about the history of the Congo, including the overview work L'histoire générale du Congo: De l'héritage ancien à la République démocratique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Pierre Makouta-Mboukou</span>

Jean-Pierre Makouta-Mboukou was a Congolese politician, academic, novelist and playwright. For his abundant and eclectic work his biographers have called him the “Congolese Victor Hugo” and the “baobab of Congolese literature”.

Bogumil (Bogumił) Jewsiewicki Koss is a Polish-Canadian historian and an Africanist specialising in the history of Central Africa, notably the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the social usage of visual memory.

Martin A. Klein is an Africanist and an emeritus professor in the History Department at the University of Toronto specialising in the Atlantic slave trade, and francophone West Africa: Senegal, Guinea, and Mali. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism at Northwestern University (1951-1955) and a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in history at the University of Chicago (1957-1964). Klein worked as an assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley from 1965 till 1970, later teaching African history at the University of Toronto as an associate professor and later full professor from 1970 until his retirement in 1999. As a Fulbright Fellow, Klein taught for a year at Lovanium University in Kinshasa.

References

  1. Orrells, Daniel (1 March 2016). "V.Y. Mudimbe and the Myth of Oedipus". The East African Review (51): 45–59. doi: 10.4000/eastafrica.316 . ISSN   2071-7245. S2CID   171888569.
  2. Mudimbe, V. Y.; Mudimbé, Vumbi Yoka (1991). UW Press – : Parables and Fables: Exegesis, Textuality, and Politics in Central Africa, V. Y. Mudimbe. ISBN   978-0-299-13064-0.
  3. "Valentin Mudimbe | Program in Literature". literature.duke.edu. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
  4. Masolo, D. A. (1991). "An Archaeology of African Knowledge: A Discussion of V. Y. Mudimbe". Callaloo. 14 (4): 998–1011. doi:10.2307/2931218. JSTOR   2931218 via JSTOR.
  5. Mazrui, Ali AlʼAmin (2005). "The Re-invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond". Research in African Literatures. 36 (3): 68–82. doi:10.2979/RAL.2005.36.3.68. S2CID   162245529 via Project MUSE.
  6. Archie, Marlene M. "An Afrocentric Critique of Mudimbe's Book The Invention of Africa" (PDF). African Studies via Institute of African Studies.