Mudimbe’s homo absconditus: Towards a resurrection of the human

Abstract

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

Continuity, Discontinuity, Invention, Reinvention of African Aesthetics or Cultural Memory and Change

“…In that way, the antiquity has continually been transformed, and the role of the narrator adapted to the environment. However, at the same time, a persistent substratum that digs into the distant past keeps the essential links with what Mudimbe addresses as the archeological past (MUDIMBE, 2016;PERNET, 2006, FRAITURE, 2012.…”