African(a) philosophy reading list
from Prof. Samuel Imbo
header image: W.E.B. Du Bois
opp gratefully receives permission to share this syllabus from Prof Imbo. please note that all formatting follows from the original.
accessible resources: A Companion to African Philosophy.
Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/10/dangarembga-tsitsi/
There is also a TED talk (lasting 12.26) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAKh0nSsjlA
On the same theme, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc - We should all be feminists, 2009 | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TEDxEuston
African Feminist Forum http://www.africanfeministforum.com/amina-mama/
Above Whispers http://abovewhispers.com/
Primary Readings:
Samuel O. Imbo, An Introduction to African Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
Tsenay Serequeberhan, Existence and Heritage: Hermeneutic Explorations in African and Continental Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 2015)
Wiredu, Kwasi, Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996)
Anthony Bogues, Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals (New York and London: Routledge, 2003)
Paulin J. Hountondji, African Philosophy: Myth & Reality, Second Edition (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996).
Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016)
Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997)
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) read online
Further Reading:
Anzaldua, Gloria: Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers in This Bridge Called My Back, Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldua (editors). Women of Color Press, 1983.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi Nervous Conditions (Seal Press, 1988).
Dikirr, Patrick Maison: Sagacity in the Maasai Concept of Death and Immortality. In: Graneß, Anke und Kai Kresse (Editors): Sagacious Reasoning. Henry Odera Oruka in memoriam Frankfurt/M.: Lang 1997, pp. 181-194.
English, Parker and Kibujjo M. Kalumba: (editors): African Philosophy. A Classical Approach. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall 1996
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi: (editor): Postcolonial African Philosophy. A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell 1997
Frantz Fanon, Toward The African Revolution trans. Haakon Chevalier (Grove Press 1967)
Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks trans. Charles Lam Markmann (Grove Press 1967)
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth trans. Constance Farrington (Grove Press 1963)
Gbadegesin, Segun: African Philosophy. Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities. New York: Peter Lang. 1991.
Lewis Gordon: “Frantz Fanon, Philosophy, and Racism” in Her Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age; Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. Pp. 25 – 50.
Gordon, Lewis. An Introduction to Africana Philosophy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008.
Gordon, Lewis. What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought New York: Fordham University Press. 2015
Gyekye, Kwame: An Essay on African Philosophical Thought. The Akan Conceptual Scheme. Temple University Press. 1995.
Gyekye, Kwame: Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997.
Hallen, Barry: A Short History of African Philosophy, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Hountondji, Paulin J. African Philosophy: Myth & Reality, Second Edition, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Imbo, Samuel O. An Introduction to African Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
Imbo, Samuel O. “Frantz Fanon and the Meaning of Life,” (pp. 260-265) in The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers, edited by Stephen Leach and James Tartaglia: Routledge, 2018.
Janz, Bruce. Philosophy in an African Place, Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2009.
Masolo, Dismas A.: African Philosophy in Search of Identity. Indiana: Edinburgh University Press. 1994.
Mudimbe, Valentin Y.: The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1988.
Okafor, Fidelis U.: Issues in African Philosophy Re-examined. In: International Philosophical Quarterly. 1993. Vol. 33, No. 129, pp. 91-99.
Okafor, Fidelis U.: Legal Positivism and the African Legal Tradition In: International Philosophical Quarterly, New York. 1984. Vol. 24, No. 94, pp. 157-164.
Okere, Theophilus: African philosophy. A historico-hermeneutical investigation of the conditions of its possibility. Lanham: University Press of America. 1983.
Oruka, Henry Odera: Sage Philosophy. Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. Leiden: Brill 1990.
Senghor, Léopold Sédar: The Foundations of "Africanité" or "Négritude" and "Arabité". Paris: Presence Africaine. 1971.
Serequeberhan, Tsenay: The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy. Horizon and Discourse. London: Routledge. 1994.
Serequeberhan, Tsenay: Existence and Heritage: Hermeneutic Explorations in African and Continental Philosophy. State University of New York Press, 2015.
Tempels, Placide: Bantu Philosophy. Paris: Présence Africaine. 1959.
Wiredu, Kwasi: Philosophy and an African Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1980.
Wiredu, Kwasi: Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Wiredu, K. (editor), A Companion to African Philosophy, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2004.