Nihilism and Blackness-- Ways of Life in Africa
Publisher
:
PUF
Parution date
:
EAN
:
9782130573661
Number of pages
:
262
Description
In an original and provocative analysis of behavior and lifestyle in Africa, Cameroonian scholar Célestin Monga dismisses the clichés of a self-indulgent hedonist culture to explore the mechanisms that drive and define the African pursuit of happiness, and the melancholy that comes as a result.
As “a citizen of the world, but an African first,” Monga questions the significance of “blackness” (négritude) introduced by African cultural theorists such as Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor and attempts to construct a bridge between native Africans and Africans in the Diaspora. Exploring a universal set of themes—love, gastronomy, dance, music, death, and violence—he draws on the nihilistic philosophy of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Cioran to show the relevance of these European thinkers to the African continent today.
From the banquets of the jet set in Yaoundé to the street markets in Ouagadougou, the maquis in Abidjan, and the election of the fattest woman of Burkina Faso, Monga’s peregrinations take us from mainstream Africa to the most surprising destinations, with the cynical but humorous vision of a great African thinker.
Author
Célestin Monga : A leading African intellectual, Célestin Monga works as an economist for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Harvard University, MIT, and the Universities of Paris 1 Sorbonne, Bordeaux, and Pau (France) and holds a Ph.D. in political economy. He has published several books on economics and political science, including Un Bantou à Washington (P.U.F, 2007) and Anthropologie de la colère (L’Harmattan, 1994) which was translated into English as Anthropology of Anger (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996) and has become a required text at many colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada.
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