(Presentation in French. Discussion in French and English)

This talk will nuance the commonly held narrative that the emergence of Francophone African literature during the French colonial period was a reaction to Western views of Africa in general, and to the discourse of colonial anthropology in particular. The analysis of two cases studies will complicate the idea that these writings are mere responses to European discourses and shed light on the complexity of early Francophone writers’ engagement with anthropological knowledge.

France and the World Seminar, Mahindra Humanities Center