PhD Network on Intercultural Philosophy around the
Rotterdam chair of Foundations of Intercultural
Philosophy
One of the priorities of the chair
of Foundations of Intercultural Philosophy, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, has been to create a context in
which Intercultural Philosophy may be pursued in a
multicentred way, combining and contrasting the cultural
inspiration of a plurality of regional traditions
world-wide (sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, China,
the North Atlantic region, etc.), so as to constrain and,
to the extent of the possible, overcome North Atlantic
hegemony in knowledge production. Adoption and
resuscitation of the journal Quest: An
African Journal of Philosophy / Revue Africaine de
Philosophie has been one of the
strategies towards this goal. Making the chair's academic and
literary production, and even his engagement in African
therapy, globally and freely available on the Internet,
has been another such strategy.
The most recent development is the creation of an
intercontinental network of PhD candidates. Considering
the paucity of intercontinental scholarships for
Intercultural Philosophy and related fields, those PhD
candidates who live outside Europe will not be invited to
take up residence in the Netherlands; instead, they will
remain in their own country (where they typically hold an
academic appointment) during most of the period of their
PhD work, and their supervision will take the form of a
combination of annual local visits by their supervisor,
in combination with extensive e-mail contact and internal
circulation and discussion of their papers on the
network's private website. Only towards the end of the
PhD trajectory a few months' stay in the Netherlands is
foreseen, to finalise the thesis and to prepare for the
defense. The network is an initiative of the chair of
Intercultural Philosophy, with support from the African
Studies Centre (Leiden), Erasmus University Rotterdam,
and the Erasmus University Trust fund. Participation in
the network is by cooptation only, subject to the chair's
approval of an extensive (at least 25 pp., 10,000 words)
project proposal, including full bibliography and time
table.
The presence, in Cameroon, of a small core of two PhD
students belonging to the PhD Network on Intercultural
Philosophy prompted Wim van Binsbergen to visit them as
supervisor in March 2005. Long and fruitful supervisory
sessions, both groupwise and individually, were combined
with an intensive tour of formal public lectures in three
Cameroonian universities. These lectures also created the
context for informal and most cordial intellectual
exchanges with dozens of Cameroonian senior colleagues in
the fields of philosophy, social sciences, history,
economics, political science, Egyptology, literary
studies, and biology; and to meet with dozens of advanced
students already preparing for local PhD theses, many of
whom presented their projects in detail as a basis for
intensive and mutually inspiring discussions. These
contacts laid the foundation for intensive exchanges with
senior colleagues in the near future, and possibly for a
further expansion of the Cameroonian branch of the PhD
Network on Intercultural Philosophy.
By and large these two weeks of intensive touring
brought out the high level of scholarship existing in
Cameroon (many professors hold French doctorats d' Etat,
comparable with the German Habilitation and in
many respects superior to Anglosaxon PhDs -- and these
qualities reflect on the students); the eagerness and
capability to engage in incisive intellectual debate with
international visitors; but also the great disparities in
facilities and endowments that exist between the three
universities visited:
- the francophone Université de Yaounde I;
- the francophone Université Catholique de
l'Afrique Centrale; and
- the anglophone University of Buea
The local organisation of this supervision and
lecturing tour was efficiently executed by the PhD
candidate Mr Pius Mosima (lecturer at the National
Institute for Public Administration). Prof. Godfrey
Tangwa, Head of the Department of Philosophy, graciously
acted as official host on behalf of the University of
Yaounde I. The PhD candidate Mr Pascal Touoyem, of the
Department of Philosphy Yaounde I and the Service
Oecuménique pour la Paix SEP (Yaounde), made additional
logistic contributions, e.g. SEP enabled us to conduct
our PhD seminars in a quiet and well-equipped
environment. George Ekema was our patient, resourceful
and reliable driver throughout the entire period.
Cameroon happens to be one of the South countries
where members of the PhD Network on Intercultural
Philosophy are residing. Similar supervision and
lecturing tours are now being prepared for South Africa
and Indonesia, while the People's Republic of China is
under consideration.
formal addresses delivered
The following seminars and public lectures were given
by Wim van Binsbergen during his Cameroonian tour:
at the Université Catholique de l'Afrique
Centrale:
1. 'La notion de l' hégémonie come concept clé de
la philosophie interculturelle', lecture for graduate
students preparing for the licenciate, Université
Catholique de l'Afrique Centrale, Monday 14 March 2005,
11-13.00 hrs;
the French argument presented was based on a selection
from Wim van Binsbergen's book Intercultural
encounters, especially the introduction and the
final chapter
2. 'L'Afrocentricité et la lutte pour une perspective
africaine sur l'histoire universelle de la culture',
public lecture, Université Catholique de l'Afrique
Centrale, Wednesday 16 March 2005, 15.00-18.00 hrs;
the French argument presented was a combination of
those available at Wim van Binsbergen's webpage on
Afrocentricity, both in French and in
English
at the University of Buea
3. 'Globalisation: African agency in the appropriation
of global culture', public lecture, University of Buea,
staff and senior students of the social science faculty,
Tuesday 22 March 2005, 11.00-13.30 hrs;
the English argument presented was gleaned from Wim
van Binsbergen's co-edited book Situating globality:
African agency in the appropriation of global culture,
especially the introduction (with Rijk van Dijk and
Jan-Bart Gewald)
at the Université de Yaounde I
4. 'Qu'est-ce que c'est que la philosophie
interculturelle?', public lecture, Université de Yaounde
I, facultés de philosophie et des sciences sociales,
Wednesday 23 March 2005, 14-17.00 hrs;
the French argument presented was based on a selection
from Wim van Binsbergen's book Intercultural
encounters, especially the introduction, the
final chapter, and chapters 5-8
5. 'Valentin Mudimbe: Dilemmas of universalism and
homelessness -- is it possible to ground our knowledge
production as Africans in our African identity and
experience?', public lecture, Université de Yaounde I,
facultés de philosophie et des sciences sociales,
Thursday 24 March 2005, 13-15.00 hrs;
the English argument presented was a condensation of
Wim van Binsbergen's very extensive paper 'An
incomprehensible miracle: Central African clerical
intellectualism versus African historic religion: A close
reading of Valentin Mudimbe’s Tales of Faith', in
press in the Journal of African Cultural Studies
(2004, to appear June 2005), pp. 10-65.
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click
here for a map of Cameroon
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Yaounde street scenes
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| to compensate for the campus' lack of
resources, students of philosophy, psychology,
sociology and anthropology have created and are
managing their own library/lecture hall at
Yaounde I |
inside
the students' circle, during one of Wim van
Binsbergen's seminars. Note the minimal
furniture. The gentleman in khaki, centre, is
Prof. Kishani of the Ecole Normale (Yaounde),
holder of a doctorat d' Etat in philosophy from
the Sorbonne, Paris, France, and a prominent
anglophone poet
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Under the chairmanship of official host
Prof. Godfrey Tangwa (holder of a Nigerian PhD,
Africa's foremost specialist on bioethics, and
Head of the Department of Philosophy at Yaounde
I), Wim van Binsbergen addresses staff and
students on the topic 'Qu'est-ce que c'est
que la philosophie interculturelle?'; to the
right the chairman of the students' association
managing the hall and library
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the
students' carefully collected and maintained, yet
absolutly minimal and patchy, library resources;
students take turns as unpaid library attendants
and thus prevent theft, loss and damage to their
cherished intellectual capital
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| Outside the lively and well-attended
seminars, day after day was spent on intensive
PhD seminars with the Cameroonian candidates |
for
the PhD seminars, the Norbert Kenne Memorial
Peace House (Yaounde), Service Oecumenique pour
la Paix, offered an ideal and hospitable
environment
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| Université Catholique de l'Afrique
Centrale (Yaounde): the extremely well-kept
campus during rains |
Université
Catholique de l'Afrique Centrale (Yaounde): main
lecture theatre during one of Wim van
Binsbergen's seminar
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at the Université
Catholique de l'Afrique Centrale (Yaounde), after
Wim van Binsbergen's seminar on Afrocentricity,
left: waiting for refreshments in the senior
common room; from left to right the Professors
Oum (Egyptology; Yaounde I), van Binsbergen
(Intercultural Philosophy; Rotterdam and Leiden),
Mono-Njanga (Philosophy; Yaounde I) and Kouam
(Philosophy, Université Catholique de l'Afrique
Centrale); right: well-earned refreshments to
lubricate a lively intellectual exchange
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at the Université Catholique de
l'Afrique Centrale (Yaounde), Prof. Kouam
displays publications (including several volumes
of Quest: Revue Africaine de Philosophie)
to be deposited at the campus library
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during
this trip, the large number of presentations,
formal and informal contacts in both francophone
and anglophone Cameroon could only be realised in
such a short time thanks to the skill, patience
and humour of driver George Ekema
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Mr Pius Mosima, proud alumnus of the
Université Catholique de l'Afrique Centrale
(Yaounde); lecturer at the National Institute for
Public Administration, PhD candidate and
efficient organiser of Wim van Binsbergen's trip
in Cameroon
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Mr
Pascal Touoyem, long-standing political publicist
and publisher, critic of ethnic politics, and
lecturer of philosophy; PhD candidate |
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at the boundary of francophone (eastern)
and anglophone (western) Cameroon, the bridge
destroyed in 2004 when a fuel truck exploded, and
the rumours and allegations surrounding this
incident, testify to the great historical
differences between these two regions
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Mount
Cameroon, a complex of active volcano's rising to
c. 4000 m above the Gulf of Guinea, offers
breathtaking vistas as well as a pleasant climate
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| In Bakwerri villages on the slopes of
Mount Cameroon, the recent dead are buried on the
eastern outskirts of the the family plot. Land
scarcity (partly related to the CDC/Bakwerri Land
Case) is on of the factors in the high rate of
witchcraft accusations, which the regional Male
cult can scarcely control |
During
many decades, the southern slopes of Mount
Cameroon (near Buea) were the scene of the
Cameroon Development Corporation, a huge
plantation enterprise now partly dismantled and
privatised. From the 1980s onwards, Piet Konings
of the Leiden African Studies Centre (ASC) has
conducted important research here, in the context
of an agreement then negotiated with the
Cameroonian Council of Human Sciences by Wim van
Binsbergen as ASC's Head of Political and
Historical Studies
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Mount Cameroon is traditionally
considered the domain of the mountain god
Epasamoto ('Half-Human', in clearly identifiable
northwestern Bantu). In this depiction
commissioned with a Buea sign painter and used
for a Cameroon TV docudrama 'In search of
Epasamoto', the god appears as horizontally
split, upper half human, lower half stone.
However, there is reason to surmise that
underneath this local representation lurks a much
older concept distributed all over sub-Saharan
Africa: that of the halfling (known e.g. as Luwe,
Mwendanjangula), who is a forest/ hunting/
weather/ metallurgical god, not horizontally but
vertically split, and hence having only one leg,
one arm, one eye, one nostril, etc. (click here for background information
from Wim van Binsbergen's ongoing long-range
comparative and historical research on global
leopard symbolism, where this divinity plays a
major role)
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African
realities highly relevant to the PhD Network on
Intercultural Philosophy around the Rotterdam
chair of Foundations of Intercultural Philosophy:
a standard cybercafé in Buea. One hour of
internet access costs here CFA 300, i.e. Euro
0.45. For comparison: a femme de chambre
in a hotel earns about CFA 30,000 per month, i.e.
Euro 45. In this cybercafe, connections, hardware
and possibly also virus infections are such that
to open, read, and reply to one e-mail
message of a few hundred words may take as long
as half an hour or more. |
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University of Buea, South West Cameroon,
where Wim van Binsbergen's seminar on
globalisation was chaired and hosted by Dr
Yenshu, Head of Sociology, and major
international exponent of a transactional and
performative perspective on ethnicity (Cahiers
d'Etudes Africaines, 2002-2005)
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market
day in Buea |
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hospitality in the
family
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| the harbour village of Idenau at the
contested Nigerian border |
one
returns transformed, and in puzzlement at the
complexities, contradictions, potential,
resourcefulness, cultural (spiritual, culinary!)
riches, archievements, and unparallelled
hospitality of this amazing country |
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