African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude

This critically acclaimed study offers a distinct, incisive look at how Senegalese philosopher Senghor sees in African art the most acute expression of Bergson’s philosophy.

L駮pold S馘ar Senghor (1906-2001) was a Senegalese poet and philosopher who in 1960 also became the first president of the Republic of Senegal. In African Art as Philosophy, Souleymane Bachir Diagne uses a unique approach to reading Senghor’s influential works, taking as the starting point for his analysis Henri Bergson’s idea that in order to understand philosophers, one must find the initial intuition from which every aspect of their work develops. In the case of Senghor, Diagne argues that his primordial intuition is that African art is a philosophy.

To further this point, Diagne looks at what Senghor called the “1889 Revolution” (the year Bergson’s Time and Free Will was published), as well as the influential writers and publications of that period–specifically, Nietzsche and Rimbaud. The 1889 Revolution, Senghor claims, is what led him to the understanding of the “Vitalism” at the core of African religions and beliefs that found expression in the arts.

Author: Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Other Press (NY)
Published: 09/05/2023
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.5lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781635423211
Language: English