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Humanism in Africa

Recent African Humanisms



The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by the emergence of African academic intellectuals as chief spokespersons for secular African humanism. Many of these writers present their case from the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, political theory, and political economy (especially as critics of development studies), and many of them, save, for example, Kwame Gyekye (Ghana), Manganyi (South Africa), Mbogo P. More (South Africa), and Samir Amin (Senegal), are expatriates living in North America and Europe. They include, among others, V. Y. Mudimbe (Congo/Zaire), Ato Sekyi-Otu (Ghana), Kwasi Wiredu (Ghana), K. Anthony Appiah (United Kingdom/Ghana), Nkiru Nzegwu (Nigeria), Oyeronke Oyewumi (Nigeria), D. A. Masolo (Kenya), Tsenay Serequeberhan (Eritrea), Teodros Kiros (Ethiopia), Albert Mosley (Senegal), Souleyman Bachir Diagne (Senegal), Elias Bongmba (Cameroon), and Samuel Imbo (Kenya). To this academic group can be added East Indian and white Africans such as Mahmood Mandani (Uganda), John and Jean Comaroff, David Theo Goldberg, and Neil Lazarus (all from South Africa). This stage of African secular humanism is marked by such themes as postmodern skeptical humanism, liberal cosmopolitanism, New Left Marxism, and African feminism.



The poeticist-humanist tradition has continued through many novelists and dramatists such as Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya), Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Ayi Kwei Armah (Ghana), and white authors, the best known of whom are the South African Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and John Coetzee. There is also the emergence of a form of musical poeticist humanism that has been part of the rise of "world music," whose artists come from all parts of Africa and represent nearly all its traditions. They serve as critical commentators on Africa's contemporary condition. Perhaps the most famous of such artists was the Nigerian Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938–1997).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

——. "On Personhood: An Anthropological Perspective from Africa." Social Identities 7, no. 2 (2001): 267–283.

Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi, ed. African Philosophy: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

Gyekye, Kwame. An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.

Hallen, Barry. A Short History of African Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

Henry, Paget. "African and Afro-Caribbean Existential Philosophies." In Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy, edited by Lewis R. Gordon, 11–36. New York: Routledge, 1997.

——. Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Kopytoff, Igor, ed. The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Masolo, D. A. African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Mbiti, John. African Religions and Philosophy. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. Oxford: Heinemann, 1990.

Wiredu, Kwasi, ed. A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004.

Lewis R. Gordon

Additional topics

Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Heterodyne to Hydrazoic acidHumanism in Africa - Indigenous Foundations, Muslim Humanism In North Africa, "modern" African Humanism, Secular Humanism In Africa