Modern African Political Philosophy

Catalog description

What would happen if, instead of taking an instrumentalist view of the ideas of modern African political thinkers, we consider those ideas as indeed they are, attempts by them to proffer answers to the central questions of political philosophy as those are apprehended in the African context? If we did, we would end up with a robust, sophisticated discourse properly denominated 'Modern African Political Philosophy' in which we recognize, possibly celebrate and, ultimately, assess the quality of answers that African thinkers have provided. In this Seminar, we shall be reading original works by African thinkers and do so in the context of modern political philosophy. Participants in the course will work to create critical literature in response to these works as part of a more general effort to begin to create secondary resources in this relatively unexplored area of scholarship about Africa. Each participant will be expected to produce a final piece that can be a candidate for, minimally, presentation at a learned conference and, maximally, publication in a journal. This is a seminar that is absolutely focused on intellectual production by its participants under the direction of the instructor.