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Critique of Black Reason

Critique of Black Reason

Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosophy, based at WistU in South Africa. He has authored a number of influential works (such as Necropolitics), but given the importance of his works, is not as widely read and taught as he should be. Fortunately for English readers, his two recent books have been translated by published by […]

Tags: #Achille Mbembe #Critique of Black Reason #Fanon #Race #Racism

Thought Provokers
Who Owns the Problem?

Who Owns the Problem?

A common theme of the lectures Pius Adesanmi gave was on narrative ownership. Much is said about Africa, but those stories often are crafted elsewhere. That is not to say that Africans do not produce narrative, he also shows, but that such narratives do not transverse the global wires as the others do, and thereby […]

Tags: #African Studies #Pius Adesanmi #Who Owns the Problem?

Thought Provokers
Decolonization and the Decolonized

Decolonization and the Decolonized

Albert Memmi is well known for his book The Colonizer and The Colonized (1957). As a kind of follow-on “Decolonization and the Decolonized” (2004 French, 2006 translation), I had high expectations for this book (and had not having read the reviews). After reading the book, and now having looked at reader reviews and comments, I […]

Tags: #Albert Memmi #decolonization #Decolonized

Thought Provokers
A Social History of Land Reform in Ethiopia

A Social History of Land Reform in Ethiopia

Siegfried Pausewang (1937-2012) was one of the leading European scholars of Ethiopia, with contributions made over decades. His engagement in Ethiopia began in the late 1960s, as a professor at the then Haile Selassie University (now Addis Ababa University). This post covers “Peasants, Land and Society: A Social History of Land Reform in Ethiopia” (1983), […]

Tags: #Agriculture #Ethiopia #Land #Land Reform #Land Tenure

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Zara Yacob: Rationality of the Human Heart

Zara Yacob: Rationality of the Human Heart

Zara Yacob was an Ethiopian philosopher, a rationalist thinking who wrote nearly a hundred years before Descartes. Claude Sumner has written extensively about Zara Yacob, devoting a career to Ethiopian philosophy and penning many books. Kiros says “Sumner is right when he contended that Zara Yacob along with Descartes was a founder of modern philosophy” […]

Tags: #Ethiopia #Ethiopian philosophy #Rationalism #Teodros Kiros #Zara Yacob

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Silences in NGO Discourses

Silences in NGO Discourses

Issa G. Shivji is one of East Africa’s well-known critical scholars, researchers and professors. Much of his work has appeared in shorter essay form, as opposed to academic articles or books (although he has published several books as well). “Silences in NGO Discourses: The Role and Future of NGOs in Africa” (2007) is one of […]

Tags: #Development Studies #Ideology #Issa Shivji #Neoliberalism #NGO

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