How Do We Speak Of Our Place? Achille Mbembe's World
Bruce Janz
How Do We Speak Of Our Place? Achille Mbembe's World
Achille Mbembe has been facing this question, in a variety of ways, for at least two decades. While his engagement with life in Africa has been vast and varied, there are threads that run through them. One of these is a concern for the challenge of reconstituting or reinventing life in African space. We see this as a central concern in On the Postcolony and in essays such as “At the Edge of the World”, “African Modes of Self-Writing”, and many others, up to the recentCritique of Black Reason. This seminar presentation will use “African Modes of Self-Writing” as a programmatic statement of the challenges facing writing the self with the history and social reality that Africa presents. The problem will be analyzed as one of place, and Mbembe’s response, evident in many writings but especially Critique of Black Reason, is a way of understanding the world.
Tuesday, 22nd May 2018
1pm
WiSER Seminar Room,
6th Floor, Richard Ward Building,
East Campus, Wits University
Bruce Janz is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Central Florida, graduate faculty in the Texts & Technology Ph.D. program, and co-director of the CAH Center for Humanities and Digital Research. He has been at UCF since 2003, and was chair of the Philosophy department from 2008 to 2013. Previously he was at Augustana University College (now the Augustana Faculty of University of Alberta), in Alberta, Canada. His Ph.D. is from the University of Waterloo in Canada. He has taught in Canada, the US, Kenya, and South Africa.
All welcome.