This article demonstrates that the notion of the 'human ' -'man', 'anthropos', 'muntu' (and their sub-human opposites: the pagan, the savage, the 'docile' body) -has played a crucial role in V. Y. Mudimbe's work since the 1960s. Indeed, there is in the author's production a tendency to explore the human sciences and the ways in which they have contributed to the real and imaginary shape, but also obfuscation, of sub-Saharan Africa and its people since the colonial era. From his early writings, Mudimbe, the humanist, the former Benedictine who at the age of 18 was 'completely Francophonized, submitted to Greco-Roman values and Christian norms' (Mudimbe 1991: 94), has conducted a systematic critique of humanism in order to identify the reasons behind Africa's material, political and epistemological dependency on the West, and to envisage routes to its resurrection, a term also used here to reiterate the importance of religion and theology in Mudimbe's trajectory. The first part of the article focuses on The Invention of Africa and examines Mudimbe's adoption of a set of analytical models (previously developed by Michel Foucault in Les Mots et les choses) to excavate the discursive orders presiding over the emergence of Black Africans as 'objects' of knowledge. The second part of this study registers Mudimbe's partial dissatisfaction with structuralist anthropology that, although free from former racial prejudices, continues to address other cultures 'allochronically' (Johannes Fabian) and often circumvents the human in the name of scientific objectivity. Finally, the study reflects upon Mudimbe's many attempts -for instance in essays such as Parables and Fables, Les Corps glorieux, Tales of Faith, and Cheminements -to blur the divide between the scholarly essay and the autobiography and to return to his 'own foundation' (Fanon) as an African artist and intellectual. RésuméCet article démontre que la notion d''humain ' -homme, anthropos, muntu (ansi que leurs équivalents sub-humains: le païen, le sauvage, le corps 'docile') -occupe une place primordiale dans l'oeuvre de V.Y. Mudimbe depuis les années 1960. En effet, Mudimbe s'est souvent penché sur les sciences humaines pour mettre en évidence les facteurs qui ont contribué, depuis l'époque coloniale, à l'apparition, mais aussi à l'effacement, des contours réels et imaginaires de l'Afrique sub-saharienne et de ses habitants. Mudimbe, qui à l'âge de dix-huit ans était 'complètement francophone, pétri de valeurs gréco-romaines et soumis à des normes chrétiennes', a entrepris une analyse critique de la pensée humaniste afin d'expliquer l'emprise matérielle, politique et épistémologique que l'Occident
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.
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