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This article analyses francophone speculative literature and cinema and the way it mobilizes counterfactuals to challenge historical teleologies and spatial orders by exploring possible worlds and contingencies. The analysis will focus on four works of fiction from the francophone African diaspora including Bertène Juminer's La revanche de Bozambo (2000), Boubacar Boris Diop's Le temps de Tamango (1981), Abdourahman A. Waberi's Aux États-Unis d'Afrique (2006) and Sylvestre Amoussou's film Africa Paradis (2007). The four narratives erode conventional geographies and migration patterns through a counterfactual lens, depicting African countries either as imperial powers that have conquered European territories or as revolutionary forces that put an end to European interference. They thus create alternative versions of what Alessandra di Maio calls the black Mediterranean, an intercontinental space constituted by, and constitutive of, the cultures and histories of the African diaspora. Going beyond a purely aesthetic effect, these authors imagine a change of paradigm and intentionally cultivate an atmosphere of alienation for their readership. However, despite their disruptive potential, the speculative narratives remain limited in their world-building efforts because the African futures that they project remind readers more of what is than of what could be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black Bazaar is a real-life satire. Its narrator-author was called Fessologue, rendered 'Buttologist' in the English translation. He advanced polemical views about the lives of African immigrants in France. In the absence of an all persons fictitious disclaimer, since Fessologue hails like Mabanckou himself from the 'little Congo' and that many satirized characters are based on actual contemporary writers, this article analyses the 'migritude writers' through Black Bazaar, the identity novel. Drawing on Bhabha's (2003, 2012), the paper focuses on the potential of African narratives to properly talk of the subaltern history of francophone African writers and the evolution of their identities across the margins of Paris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of diatopic determinants, and more specifically, ethnic and geographic origins, on non-standard language use in francophone rap (in France and Belgium). This study relies on a lexicographic analysis to produce quantitative results that are then analysed qualitatively with the help of extracts from rap tracks and semi-structured interviews with francophone rappers. This article looks at a variety of possible determinants, including multicultural communities, immigration, flows of people, notions of power relations, authenticity and conflicts between cities and départements. The general conclusion from the analysis is that the diatopic determinants do not have a marked impact on quantitative variation within the corpus when it comes to the overall use of non-standard language, although some wider differences emerge in relation to specific categories, such as the absence of verlan by Marseille rappers or the higher use of Arabic, slang and verlan by rappers of Algerian origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of commitment is not a new one. It still it begs the question of its application across the literary landscape. Perhaps within the postcolonial context ambiguity may arise as a new challenge, especially in areas of culture and ideologies. Would not the idea of resistance be a better fit when it comes to postcolonial literature? How about the possibility of a wilful disengagement? It is usually francophone authors who take a stand, with theory questions as well as issues of literary production or exile. However, the issue of resistance holds its own dialectics, around the power of representation and national imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Léonora Miano is one of the most influential francophone writers. If her early novels set in Africa gave her a status of global fame, Miano's Afropean literature has also received more visibility in the academic world because her writing displays a genuine cultural hybridity and cordiality. This article explores the ethical motivation of forgetting and remembering in the history of Africans' experiences of suffering and death. It specifically highlights the relationship between the concepts of resistance, morality and freedom as engines of social change in L'intérieur de la nuit in 2005 and La saison de l'ombre in 2013. Besides her Afropean themes, the ethical function and emotional content of Miano's artistic forms on Africa are not simply a fertile ground for testing useful answers of African contemporary social and political challenges, but also a lieu de memoire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are Imazighen: The Development of Algerian Berber Identity in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture, Fazia Aitel (2014) University Press of Florida, 324 pp., ISBN-10: 0813049393, $74.95 From Francophonie to World Literature in French: Ethics, Poetics, & Politics, Thérèse Migraine-George (2013) Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 237 pp., ISBN: 9780803246362 Trajectoires et dérives de la littérature-monde: Poétiques de la relation et du divers dans les espaces francophones, Colloque de l'APLAQA, Cécilia W. Francis and Robert Viau (ed.) (2013) 1st ed., Amsterdam: Rodopi, 608 pp., ISBN-10: 9042036877, h/bk, £84, ISBN-13: 9789042036871, $122 Language and Literary Form in French Caribbean Writing, Celia Britton (2014) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 256 pp., ISBN: 9781781380369, h/bk, £70 Les écrivains maghrébins francophones et l'Islam. Constance dans la diversité, Najib Rédouane (coord.) (2013) Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 460 pp., ISBN: 9782343017204 Critical Conditions: Illness and Disability in Francophone African and Caribbean Women's Writing, Julie N. Ngue (2012) Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 208 pp., ISBN: 9780739151143, h/bk, $80/£49.95 A Poetics of Relation: Caribbean Women Writing at the Millennium, Odile Ferly (2012) New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 222 pp., ISBN: 9780230120440, h/bk, $95 L'Humour et l'ironie en littérature francophone subsaharienne. Des enjeux critiques à une poétique du rire, Vincent Simédoh (2012) New York: Peter Lang, 169 pp., ISBN: 9781433115431, h/bk, £47 From Sugar to Revolution: Women's Visions of Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, Myriam J. A. Chancy (2012) Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 358 pp., ISBN: 9781554584284, h/bk, $85 France's Colonial Legacies, Fiona Barclay (2013) Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 260 pp., ISBN: 9780708326671, h/bk, £95 Rethinking Reading, Writing, and a Moral Code in Contemporary France. Postcolonializing High Culture in the Schools of the Republic, Michel Laronde (2014) Lanham: Lexington Books, 222 pp., ISBN: 9780739181669 Mythes et Erotismes dans les littératures et les cultures francophones de l'extrême contemporain, Efstratia Oktapoda (ed.) (2013) Amsterdam: Rodopi, 314 pp., ISBN: 9789042037624, p/bk, £55.62 What is Québécois Literature?, Rosemary Chapman (2013) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 292 pp., ISBN: 9781846319730, £70.00 After 'Rwanda'. In Search of a New Ethic, Jean-Paul Martinon (2013) Amsterdam: Rodopi, 308 pp., ISBN: 9789042037113, p/bk, £58.50 Les français d'ici et d'aujourd'hui. Description, représentation et théorisation, Bigot, Davy, Friesner, Michael et Tremblay Mireille (sous la dir.) (2013) Canada: Presses de l'Université Laval, Les Voies du français (coll.), 260 pp., ISBN: 9782763797700 Bilingual Being. My life as a Hyphen, Kathleen Saint-Onge (2013) Montreal, Kingston, London and Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 328 pp., ISBN: 9780773541191 Cousin K, Yasmina Khadra (trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith and Alyson Waters) (2013) Lincoln NE: Nebraska University Press, 85 pp., ISBN: 9780803234932, p/bk, US$15.95 Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary, Régine Michelle Jean-Charles (2014) Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 320 pp., ISBN: 9780814212462, h/bk, $69.95 Écritures féminines et dialogues critiques: Subjectivité, genre et ironie, Françoise, Lionnet (2012) Ile Maurice: L'Atelier d'écriture, 315 pp., ISBN: 99903-36-68-7 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates the neglected relationships between métissage, corporeality, memory and foodways within Francophone Asia-Pacific literatures written by Asiatic migrant writers of the French language. By focusing specifically on two texts, Ook Chung's Kimchi (2001) and Jimmy Ly's Bonbon soeurette et pai coco (1997), this study explores the various constructions of mixed-race, multiethnic diasporic identity through the intake and symbolism of food. Both multiethnic protagonists in these two texts exhibit sentiments of delocalization and otherness. However, through literal and epistemic acts of alimentary consumption that interlink with nostalgia, Chung's and Ly's protagonists structure individual and collective memories, while challenging certain intra-ethnic tensions and notions of hybridizing roots, language and cultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a reflection on the notion of 'African philosophy'. First, its disciplinary history is examined with a specific focus on the decisive input of some of its major forerunners such as Placide Tempels but also W. V. Brelsford, Paul Radin and Léopold Sédar Senghor. At the beginning of the 1970s their ethnophilosophical pronouncements are, however, radically challenged by a new generation of francophone and anglophone thinkers such as Paulin Hountondji and Kwasi Wiredu. This article also envisages the future for 'African philosophy'. It argues that African translators-philosophers will need to assign a central role to African languages in order to produce and translate philosophy in these languages. Cet article propose une réflexion sur la notion de 'philosophie africaine'. Il envisage d'abord son histoire et examine l'apport décisif de quelques précurseurs tels que Placide Tempels mais aussi W. V. Brelsford, Paul Radin, Alexis Kagamé et Léopold Sédar Senghor. Au tournant des années soixante-dix, leur vision ethnophilosophique se bute aux critiques d'une nouvelle génération de penseurs francophones et anglophones tels que Paulin Hountondji et Kwasi Wiredu. Cet essai se penche aussi sur l'avenir de la discipline. Il met ainsi en évidence le rôle primordial qu'il convient d'accorder aux langues africaines d'aujourd'hui ainsi qu'aux traducteursphilosophes à qui incombe le projet de traduire et de produire de la philosophie dans les langues africaines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the 1953 film essay Les Statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Ghislain Cloquet. The film was commissioned by Présence Africaine, the publisher and academic journal, which would radically transform France's post-war intellectual landscape and pave the way for a wholesale reassessment of the relationship between Africa and the West in the arts, literature, the human sciences and philosophy. Les Statues resonates with the main concerns of the period: it bemoans the commodification of African art in European museums, calls for the establishment of a new humanism but also militates for a more equitable and post-racial world order. The documentary, and the mournful discussion that it conducts on the imminent death of African art, will be appraised against a set of pronouncements by Placide Tempels (La Philosophie bantoue, [1949] 2013), Cheikh Anta Diop (L'Unité culturelle de l'Afrique noire, [1959] 1982) and V. Y. Mudimbe (''Reprendre'. Enunciations and strategies in contemporary African arts', 1991). The article will also examine the long-term legacy of Les Statues and consider the recent response to it by the Irish video artist Duncan Campbell in It for Others, his 2014 Turner Prize-winning essay-film. Dans cet article, je me pencherai sur le film d'art et essai Les Statues meurent aussi (1953) de Chris Marker, Alain Resnais et Ghislain Cloquet. A l'origine, ce film était une commande de Présence Africaine, la maison d'édition (mais aussi revue éponyme), qui assuma un rôle capital dans la transformation du paysage intellectuel français de l'après-guerre et institua, dans les domaines artistiques, littéraires, philosophiques, ainsi que dans les sciences humaines, de nouveaux rapports entre l'Afrique et l'Occident. Les Statues fait écho aux préoccupations principales de cette période. Le film déplore que les musées européens aient transformé l'art nègre en un objet de consommation; il en appelle à l'établissement d'un nouvel humanisme et milite également pour un ordre planétaire post-racial plus équitable. Les réflexions de Placide Tempels (La Philosophie bantoue, [1949] 2013), Cheikh Anta Diop (L'Unité culturelle de l'Afrique noire, [1959] 1982) et V. Y. Mudimbe (''Reprendre'. Enunciations and strategies in contemporary African arts', 1991) seront mise à profit pour sonder le discours pessimiste que ce documentaire tient sur la fin imminente de l'art africain. Cet article prendra aussi en considération la portée, sur le long terme, du documentaire et évoquera le remake récent, It for Others (2013), du vidéaste irlandais Duncan Campbell, lauréat du Turner Prize en 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though, at the time of its publication, Doguicimi was enthusiastically fêted 'as the first historical novel of African literature', it has remained a neglected work of francophone African literature. This can be explained by its indeterminate character and its imbrication with the dominant research discourses promoted by the colonizer during the interwar years in order to better 'know' the colonized. Nevertheless, an understanding of the conditions of literary production reveals that, contrary to what is often believed, the colonized were adept at decoding the ambiguities of the colonial situation. In a similar way, they also mastered the art of infiltrating the interstices of colonial discourse in order to articulate their personal and collective aspirations, as has been demonstrated by Achille Mbembe in 'African modes of self-writing' and V. Y. Mudimbe in The Invention of Africa (1988). In actual fact, if the Dahomean Paul Hazoumé places his writings at the intersection of French Africanism, and makes use of its discursive and scientific strategies, it is mostly because this area of research offered the only possible location for his thought. Doguicimi is, in a sense, a source-text. It borrows its instruments of colonial research primarily from ethnography so as to articulate an African vision of the African world and convey an urgency-to-be. This article aims to restore the trajectory of the novelist to highlight the real implications of writing in the colonies. In addition, it proposes a rereading of this novel that deviates from previous inaccurate analyses and suggests instead that Doguicimi represents an endeavour at thinking the self, and therefore arguing in favour of a reappraisal of the colonial library where the kingdom of Dahomey occupies a place of prime importance. Salué à sa parution comme le 'premier roman historique de la littérature africaine', Doguicimi demeure néanmoins un des oubliés de la littérature africaine d'expression française, en raison de son caractère indécis et de son imbrication dans le discours dominant de recherche que le colonisateur se fit fort de promouvoir pendant l'entre-deux-guerres dans l'intention de mieux connaître les peuples soumis. Néanmoins, une prise en compte des conditions de production littéraire en période coloniale démontre que, contrairement à ce qu'on a pu en dire, les colonisés étaient aptes eux aussi à décoder les ambiguïtés de la situation coloniale, tout comme ils maîtrisaient l'art de s'insérer dans les interstices du discours colonial pour articuler leurs aspirations personnelles et collectives ainsi que l'ont V. Y. Mudimbe dans The Invention of Africa (1988). En fait, si l'écrivain béninois Paul Hazoumé place son oeuvre dans la filiation de l'africanisme français, et use de ses stratégies scientifiques et discursives, c'est que celui-ci représentait pour lui le seul lieu d'écriture et de pensée. Doguicimi est dans un sens un texte-source qui emprunte les instruments de la recherche coloniale, à savoir l'ethnographie, en vue d'articuler une vision du monde africain et exprimer une urgence d'être. Cette étude tâchera de restituer la trajectoire du romancier pour montrer ce que signifiait écrire en colonie; et proposer, ensuite, une lecture de ce roman qui, indépendamment des projections qui ont déformé sa signification, représente, à mon sens, une tentative de se penser soi-même à la faveur d'une relecture de la bibliothèque coloniale où le royaume du Dahomey retint, comme on le sait, une place de première importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The philosopher Bourahima Ouattara claims that Africans have a unique feature that can help them fight against the west's economic, cultural and intellectual hegemony and therefore against globalization. This feature is that of 'being' outside of all conceptuality. Being outside (or being-third), sub-Saharan Africans are therefore able to expose the weakness of the west's mighty power: the stubborn repetition of its founding principle: the concept. Instead of just emulating concepts from former colonies or avidly promoted by global capitalism, sub-Saharan Africa should, according to him, unhinge itself from the concept in order to undermine the concept-driven modernity that marks our world's destiny. Can Bourahima Ouattara's bold claim really work? Should we all - i.e. not just Africans - listen to him? This article tries not only to make sense but also to test this ambitious attempt to undermine the arrogance and imperialism of the concept, this cornerstone of western philosophy since Plato. Le philosophe Bourahima Ouattara nous dit que les Africains ont une caractéristique unique qui peut les aider à combattre l'hégémonie économique, culturelle et intellectuelle de l'occident et donc à lutter contre la mondialisation dominante. Cette caractéristique est celle 'd'être' l'autre de toute conceptualité. Étant l'autre de l'autre (ou 'être-en-tiers'), les Africains subsahariens peuvent donc exposer la faiblesse de l'occident: la répétition jamais suffisamment achevée de son principe fondateur: le concept. Au lieu de simplement suivre ou imiter les concepts et donc les valeurs des anciennes colonies, toujours avidement promus par le capitalisme mondial, l'Afrique subsaharienne devrait, selon lui, se 'decrocher' du concept de façon à saper l'axe modernité / concept, cet axe qui marque le destin du monde. Se peut-il que Bourahima Ouattara ait raison? Devrions-nous tous - et non pas seulement l'Afrique - l'écouter et nous 'decrocher' ainsi du concept? Cet essai a deux buts: présenter brièvement l'oeuvre de B. Ouattara et tester cette tentative ambitieuse de ruiner l'arrogance et l'impérialisme du concept, cette pierre angulaire de la philosophie occidentale depuis Platon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to restart the debate regarding the social function of philosophy that was instigated in the 1970s by Olabiyi B. Yaï, Paulin Hountondji, Prosper Laleye and, more recently, by Ngoma-Binda. The article argues that if this debate is to be resurrected in the present, it must be done so by reconstructing African philosophy as social research and as an exploration of the possibilities inscribed within African reality. If African philosophy wants to have something relevant to say about contemporary social problems and contribute to the opening up of new futures, it must be built on social practices through which people may express their hopes and suffering as well as engage in re-imagining the future. What is required is an authenticity of philosophical practice in the struggle for emancipatory democracy and social justice. This is especially true where philosophy is said to be meaningful only when it is understood as a practice in a given context that it shapes at the same time as it is shaped by it. Thus, to reconstruct African philosophy is to revitalize it through contact with everyday life where the subject encounters his or her history. To reconstruct African philosophy is to confront it with the challenge of the ordinary where one's relationship with the world and others is rediscovered. Le présent article a pour visée de reprendre le débat sur l'utilité sociale de la philosophie africaine soulevé naguère par Olabiyi B. Yaï, Paulin Hountondji, Prosper Laleye et, plus récemment, par Ngoma Binda. Il soutient que ce débat doit être repris aujourd'hui en termes de reconstruction de la philosophie africaine comme recherche sociale et exploration des possibles inscrits dans la réalité africaine. Si la philosophie africaine veut avoir quelque chose de pertinent à dire sur les problèmes contemporains et contribuer à ouvrir les horizons du futur, elle doit avoir comme point de départ les pratiques sociales à travers lesquelles les peuples africains expriment leur souffrance et leur espoir social, et s'engagent dans la ré-imagination du futur à construire. Il s'agit ici d'une exigence d'authenticité de la pratique philosophique en temps de lutte pour la démocratie comme processus d'émancipation et pour la justice sociale, surtout si l'on accepte que la philosophie n'a de consistance que d'être un acte accompli en situation, modifiant celle-ci dans sa structure tout comme il est informé par elle. Ainsi, reconstruire la philosophie africaine, c'est lui donner un nouvel élan au contact avec le quotidien, où le sujet fait la rencontre avec son histoire; c'est recommencer la philosophie à l'épreuve de l'ordinaire, où l'on apprend à ressaisir nos liens avec le monde et les autres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rooted in the historical and political realities of their native country, Cameroon, and yet deeply influenced by their common experience of exile and intellectual nomadism, historian Achille Mbembe and economicist Célestin Monga share many commonalities, among which the ambition of rethinking Africa's contemporary situation at a world scale as well as their attempt to understand the contemporary world from an African viewpoint. Achille Mbembe is now well known for his theorization of the postcolony (or the forms of political imagination in Africa), as well as for his concept of Afropolitanism, which characterizes 'the new African sensibility in the age of diaspora and globalization'. Célestin Monga, for his part, has developed, through various travelogues and essays, an original thought based on a nihilist understanding of the creativity at work in the various aspects of ordinary life in Africa, yet also taking into account the major dynamics of globalization. Building on the biographical and intellectual analogies between Monga and Mbembe, this article explores their common assumptions as well as the major lines of their dissent; it then focuses on certain tensions and paradoxes in order to outline the main differences in the critical and literary postures of both thinkers. Ancrés dans les réalités historiques et politiques du Cameroun, mais nourris également par leur expérience de l'exil voire par un certain nomadisme intellectuel, les penseurs Achille Mbembe et Célestin Monga partagent un même projet: repenser la situation de l'Afrique dans le monde, et développer sur l'état du monde contemporain un point de vue neuf depuis l'Afrique. Si Mbembe est aujourd'hui célèbre pour avoir théorisé, d'une part, la postcolonie (ou les formes contemporaines de l'imagination politique en Afrique) et, d'autre part, l'afropolitanisme ou la manifestation d'une 'nouvelle sensibilité africaine dans un nouvel âge de dispersion et de circulation', l'oeuvre de Célestin Monga, en apparence plus littéraire, décline sous la forme de carnets de voyage et d'essais critiques une pensée tout aussi originale, puisqu'elle aborde les aspects créatifs de la vie quotidienne en Afrique, ainsi que les grandes dynamiques de la mondialisation au prisme du nihilisme philosophique. Cet article expose donc les grandes lignes de ces pensées gémellaires, dans leurs convergences et dans leurs singularités, pour analyser ensuite quelques tensions ou paradoxes dans leurs positions critiques et dans leurs postures littéraires respectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the publication of his first book Nations nègres et culture in 1955, the Senegalese writer Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1988) sought to demonstrate that Black people had lived in ancient Egypt. This thesis continues to be the subject of debate today. The present article will discuss the broad lines of Diop's thinking and will explain that this writer, whose work deals with the question of 'scientific' truth, was not just an historian but also a philosopher. The article will subsequently focus on meaning in Diop's writings. In this regard, the extent to which terms such as 'counter discourse, 'counter ideology' and 'heresy' contribute to an understanding of the effects of Diop's thought will be explored. Finally, the historical context of Diop's writing will be emphasized, i.e the Senegal of Léopold Sédar Senghor. Diop was politically opposed to Senghor. However, the antagonism between the two men can also be explained by differences in their respective intellectual backgrounds: Diop was an academic researcher, whose publications very much reflect the conventions and methods of this profession. Senghor was a poet and an accomplished public speaker whose lectures frequently highlighted the type of broad cultural interests he acquired when he was a student in the Khâgne class of the prestigious Louis-Le-Grand high school in Paris and later in the Sorbonne. L'écrivain sénégalais Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1988) a cherché à montrer depuis son premier ouvrage, Nations nègres et culture, paru en 1954, que l'Egypte antique était habitée par un peuple noir, thèse qui devait provoquer des débats toujours très vifs. Après avoir rappelé les grandes lignes de la démonstration, cet article montre que Diop ne fut pas seulement un historien mais aussi un philosophe car ses différents ouvrages contiennent toute une réflexion sur la 'science' et la véracité de ses énoncés. Cette étude précisera ensuite ce qui fait sens dans l'oeuvre de Diop et, sur ce plan, on verra dans quelle mesure des termes comme 'contre-discours', 'contre-idéologie' ou 'hérésie' peuvent être envisagés pour éclairer les effets produits par cette oeuvre. Enfin, on se souviendra que Diop produit son oeuvre dans un contexte très particulier: le Sénégal de Léopold Sédar Senghor. Diop fut un opposant politique à Senghor. Mais leur antagonisme tient aussi au fait que Diop et Senghor n'occupaient pas la même place dans le champ académique: le premier fut un chercheur, auteur de nombreux livres savants; le second un poète et un conférencier, profondément marqué par les enseignements de la khâgne de Louis-Le-Grand, et un responsable politique, parfois enclin à abuser de son pouvoir temporel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of modern European thought has characterized the pursuit of philosophy as an essentially Greek occupation. The Greco-Roman philosophical tradition has also provided models and alibis for the European colonial project. What, then, does it mean to be an African philosopher in this historical context? Can the African philosopher utilize the Greco-Roman tradition for the sake of postcolonialist critique? Or does the African philosopher end up replicating the sins of the father like Oedipus, King of Thebes? This article examines V. Y. Mudimbe's interest in the meaning of this myth for the postcolonial African philosopher. L'histoire de la pensée moderne européenne a fait de la philosophie une occupation essentiellement grecque. La tradition philosophique gréco-romaine a aussi fourni des modèles et des alibis au projet colonial européen. Dans un tel contexte historique, que signifie, alors, être philosophe africain? Est-il en mesure de se prévaloir de la tradition gréco-romaine pour monter une critique postcoloniale? Ou doit-il plutôt se résigner, à l'instar d'OEdipe, roi de Thèbes, à répéter les péchés de son père ? Cet article entreprend d'examiner la signification du mythe oedipien dans l'oeuvre de V. Y. Mudimbe et de définir le rôle que le penseur congolais lui assigne dans le cadre d'une philosophie africaine postcoloniale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sando Marteau is a Swahiliphone performing artist who lives in Lubumbashi, DRC. This article places the artist within the tradition of Swahili poetry, yet outside of what it calls 'strung-pearl aesthetics', on which much so-called traditional Swahili poetry is predicated. This aesthetics projects a rigid prosodic structure upon poetic speech, whereby the formal arrangement of language corresponds to an equally harmonious and pleasing ordering of tropes and ideas. Swahili poetry that does not form part of the classical canon challenges these poetic norms and the intellectual frameworks embedded in such poetry. Congolese Swahili poetry, in particular, invariably falls outside of its poetic and philosophical rhythms. Here, the subversive tendencies in the lyrics of Sando Marteau are exposed. The intellectual attitude that informs the subversive potential of artist Sando Marteau's poetry is his existentialist orientation. Instrumental to subversion are the poet's troubling depictions of suffering. Suffering is the force that opposes culture's inherently totalizing tendencies. Suffering also reminds us to question dominant paradigms of thought and political organization. Conversely, the act of subversion keeps suffering raw and live, and prevents its easy subsumption under an essentialist notion that might render it tolerable, numbed or perhaps even commendable (heroic). Sando Marteau est un artiste musicien qui vit à Lubumbashi, RDC. Cet article situe l'artiste dans la tradition de la poésie swahili, mais en dehors de ce qu'il appelle 'l'esthétique de perles enfilées', qui structure la plupart de la poésie swahili dite traditionnelle. Cette esthétique projette une structure rigide prosodique sur la parole poétique, en établissant une correspondance entre l'arrangement formel du langage et l'ordre également harmonieux et agréable de tropes et d'idées. La poésie swahili, quand elle ne ressort pas de ce canon classique, pose un défi à ces normes poétiques et aux cadres intellectuels qui y sont intégrés. La poésie swahili congolaise, en particulier, ne se conforme pas aux rythmes poétiques et philosophiques de la poésie swahili classique. Cet article met en exergue les tendances subversives des textes de Sando Marteau. Le potentiel subversif de la poésie de Sando Marteau réside dans l'orientation existentialiste de l'artiste. Ce sont ses descriptions poignantes de la souffrance qui se trouvent au coeur de la subversion. La souffrance est la force qui s'oppose aux tendances totalisantes propres à la culture et qui incite l'esprit à mettre en question les paradigmes courants de la pensée et de l'organisation politique. Pour sa part, l'acte de subversion maintient la souffrance à vif, en rejetant les généralisations essentialistes qui auraient pour effet de rendre cette souffrance tolérable, voire même louable (héroïque), et d'en atténuer l'intensité. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major conceptual apparatuses in Mudimbe's critical repertoire is the concept of the 'colonial library', an abstraction that denotes the immense body of texts and systems of representation that for centuries has functioned to produce Africa as a paradigm of difference and alterity. A transdisciplinary space the huge knowledge capital of which constitutes and is constitutive of the epistemological locus of Africa's invention, the colonial library, Mudimbe tells us, also incarnates a paradox: while its knowledge capital serves to justify monstrosities such as Atlantic slavery and colonialism, it has also been from within the foundations of its power knowledge regimes that Africans themselves have sought to interrogate western discourses on Africa, as well as produce their own notions of self-identity, discourses of Otherness and ideologies of alterity. What exactly is this library, and how does it structure knowledge on and about Africa? This article examines the colonial library and the problem it poses for Africanist knowledge. It asks whether discourse on and about Africa outside of the power-knowledge regimes of the library is possible, or, whether Africanist knowledge is always already doomed at its very moment of enunciation since it is always contaminated by the violence of its epistemological region of emergence. The article concludes by engaging with Achille Mbembe in order to illustrate the difficulty of escaping the vicious circle generated by the colonial library. La 'bibliothèque coloniale' est un des principaux appareils conceptuels du répertoire critique mudimbéen. Ce concept est une abstraction censée représenter un immense corpus de textes et d'images qui, pendant des siècles, a alimenté l'idée selon laquelle l'Afrique serait le continent de la différence et de l'altérité. Espace transdisciplinaire dont l'énorme capital intellectuel constitue le locus épistémologique de l'invention de l'Afrique, la bibliothèque coloniale, ainsi que Mudimbe le remarque, incarne aussi un paradoxe. D'un côté, elle fut mobilisée pour justifier des monstruosités telles que la traite négrière atlantique et le colonialisme; d'un autre côté, c'est à partir du pouvoir-savoir qui la constituait que les Africains se sont employés à interroger les discours occidentaux sur l'Afrique ainsi qu'à produire leurs propres notions identitaires et, finalement, à élaborer leur singularité discursive et idéologique. En quoi consiste exactement cette bibliothèque et de quelles ressources tire-t-elle profit pour structurer le savoir africain? Cet article se penche en outre sur les défis que la bibliothèque coloniale pose à l'émergence d'un savoir africaniste. D'autres questions connexes seront abordées: peut-on concevoir une réflexion sur l'Afrique en dehors de la dualité pouvoir-savoir qui régit la bibliothèque? Doit-on plutôt se résigner à accepter que tout discours africaniste se trouve, dès le moment de son énonciation, irrémédiablement contaminé par son contexte épistémologique d'origine? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the function of the zombie's blank gaze in recent Francophone Caribbean fiction. The word 'zombie' originally emerged in the New World during the transatlantic slave trade. In Haiti, the legendary subservient, disinterred body associated with the term serves as the materialized historical narrative of enslavement. However, even as zombies have evolved into allegories of the Duvalier regime in Haitian literature and violent 'cannibals' in North American visual culture, they are connected by their iconic vacant stare. This presumed blankness often seems to illustrate an internal emptiness. This article argues that this idea is problematized by Francophone writers such as Jacques Stephen Alexis, who critiques alienating western narratives by reimagining the zombie's vacant stare, which comes to metonymize the creature's narrative plasticity. Ultimately, the blank gaze makes a fascinating vehicle for interrogating the monster's literal and metanarrative transformations. Cet article examine la fonction du regard vide du zombie dans la fiction Francophone antillaise récente. Le mot 'zombie' est émergé au Nouveau Monde pendant la période historique de la traite négrière. En Haïti, la légende du corps soumis et ressuscité qui est associée au terme sert de matérialisation du récit historique de l'esclavage. Quoique les zombies aient évolués en allégorie du régime Duvalier dans la littérature haïtienne et en 'cannibale' violent dans la culture visuelle d'Amérique du Nord, ces avatars restent liés par leur regard vide emblématique. Cette vacuité est souvent présumée illustrer l'état intérieur du zombie également. Cette étude affirme que cette conception du zombie est mise en question par des écrivains francophones tels que Jacques Stephen Alexis, qui critique certains récits occidentaux aliénants en réinterprétant le regard vide du zombie, qui sert de métonymie de la plasticité narrative de la figure. Finalement, le regard vide sert d'un véhicule fascinant à interroger les transformations littérales et métanarratives du zombie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Géo/Graphies postcoloniales. La Poétique de l'espace dans le roman mauricien et sénégalais, Antje Ziethen (2013) Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 172 pp., ISBN: 9783868214260, 25€ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the pioneering role that the literary and intellectual circle formed by Marius-Ary Leblond around the journal La Grande France (1900-1903) played in the gestation of both la littérature coloniale of the Third French Republic and postcolonial Francophone literature. Following a bio-bibliographical account of the circle and its members, it will present the journal's aesthetic and ideological programme with a particular emphasis on theoretical reflection about colonial literature, with a view to reassessing the circle's legacy. In addition, through a study of the main agents (Pierre Bourdieu) behind La Grande France, and their affiliations, both colonial and extra-colonial, it aims to document and reflect on the unlikely connection between colonial ideology and avant-garde aesthetics and business model, and on the consequences of this cohabitation. Cet article se propose d'explorer le rôle liminaire que le cercle littéraire et intellectuel fondé par Marius-Ary Leblond autour de la revue La Grande France (1900-1903) a joué dans la gestation de la littérature coloniale de la Troisième République et de la littérature francophone postcoloniale. Après une présentation bio-bibliographique du cercle et de ses membres, il s'attachera à décrire la plateforme esthétique et idéologique de la revue, en s'intéressant en particulier à la réflexion théorique sur la littérature coloniale qui s'y ébauche, afin de revisiter le rayonnement intellectuel du cercle et sa postérité. En outre, à travers une étude des agents (Bourdieu) principaux de la revue, et de leurs affiliations coloniales aussi bien qu'extra-coloniales, il se donnera pour tâche de documenter des liens inattendus qui se tissent entre l'idéologie coloniale, et l'esthétique et le modèle économique avant-gardistes, et d'engager une réflexion sur les causes et les conséquences de cette cohabitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical discourse addressing the question of 'migrant writing' has most often privileged phenomena related exclusively to movement, whence the tendency to characterize the intercultural subject in relation to concepts such as exile, deterritorialization and dispossession. This article, centred on the most recent novels of two Asian francophone writers, Ying Chen and Kim Thúy, seeks to broach the subject from another angle. The author postulates that the coexistence of prose and poetic expression in a same text produces a tension that may be interpreted as the attempt to portray the migrant figure as an emplaced mobile subject. The study's theoretical bases are grounded in the notions or concepts of sensual imagination and translocality. La perspective communément adoptée pour penser la question identitaire chez les écrivains migrants privilégie les phénomènes liés exclusivement à la mouvance, ce qui explique la tendance à parler du sujet interculturel en rapport avec des concepts tels que l'exil, la déterritorialisation et la dépossession. Cet article adopte une autre approche en s'intéressant au traitement de la question chez deux écrivaines asiatico-francophones, Ying Chen et Kim Thúy. L'auteure postule que la coexistence de la prose et de l'expression poétique chez ces écrivaines produit une tension, expression de la tentative de parler à la fois de mouvance et d'ancrage dans un 'chez-soi'. La base théorique de son étude emprunte à l'anthropologie son intérêt pour l'imagination sensuelle et à la géographie, le concept de la translocalité. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1950s and the period of decolonization, intellectuals in the francophone world have addressed the legacy of humanism. Frantz Fanon, amongst others, wrote on the possibilities of a new humanism and of 'new man' in a decolonized world. This humanism to be constructed, this humanism to come, was faced with the difficulty of how to negotiate the legacy of the European tradition of humanism and the conceptually constructed tension between particularizing experiences deemed proper to cultures outside of Europe and a notion of the universal, which, while an abstraction, was also characteristically French. In examining works by two Tunisian intellectuals - Albert Memmi and Hélé Béji - this article analyses what they try to do with the term 'humanism'. It is clear that both intellectuals advocate a better world and an end to human suffering, but their principal weapon- humanism - lacks sharpness and the kind of political edge (dialectical) that characterized Fanon's notion of 'new humanism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than ten years, many francophone (Franco-)Algerian and (Franco-)Moroccan women writers have been breaking the silence on the persistent taboo of female virginity in their traditional patriarchal societies. At a time when the demands for certificates of virginity and hymen repairs appear to be growing, and considering the lack of sociological studies conducted in Algeria or Morocco on sexual practices, they help to highlight the violent forms - physical or symbolic - of socialization and dominations which compelled or still constrain female sexuality in an androcentrist system. Based on the works of some of these authors, as well as on unpublished interviews, this article seeks to shed light on the strategies of resistance and transgression that these writers - and their characters - implement speaking about this 'ordinary' violence against North African women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the universal, figuring in the majority of Ying Chen's texts due to the lack of spatial and temporal reference points, develops into a major theme in Un enfant à ma porte (2009). A foundling, adopted by the narrator and her husband, causes the former to become strongly attached to the present and to contemplate the future in depth, rather than to remain preoccupied with the memories of her previous reincarnations. The text proves to be much more than a simple 'récit de filiation', as some critics have understood it, since it not only presents the individual and unusual circumstances of an unconventionally formed family, but it also raises concerns affecting the whole of humanity in the twenty-first century. In this way, it acts as a social manifesto, both advocating the re-evaluation of the role of mothers and warning against the possible demise of our species [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]