Skip Navigation


Forum for Modern Language Studies Advance Access originally published online on March 2, 2009
Forum for Modern Language Studies 2009 45(2):188-199; doi:10.1093/fmls/cqp010
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
45/2/188    most recent
cqp010v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bidima, J.-G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No. SC013532.

This article appears in the following Forum for Modern Language Studies issue: SPECIAL ISSUE: Global Francophone Africa [View the issue table of contents]

Readings of Emmanuel Lévinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone Weil: Abstract Universalism and "Details" about the African World

(Translated from the French by Nathalie Segeral and Dominic Thomas)

Jean-Godefroy Bidima

Department of French and Italian
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118
USA

jbidima{at}tulane.edu

  Abstract

How can one begin to address the question of the universalism of certain twentieth-century French philosophers and humanists when it comes to Africa? How can one explain that Lévinas, the theoretician of alterity, Merleau-Ponty, who worked on the question of intersubjectivity and was critical of Stalinism, and Weil, who fought against alienation, also produced questionable writings when it came to the colonial liberation of African subjects? How can one explain the humanism of these French philosophers and their connections to earlier historical models (primitive mentality, cultural and social hierarchies) and more contemporary anthropological and sociological works?

Key Words: French philosophy • primitive mentality • anthropology • colonial memory • decolonisation


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.