Recontextualizing Self & Other Issues in Africa: The Practice of a Conference

Mudimbe, a professor emeritus of literature, and his co-editor present a collective meditation on the 2007 joint symposium organized by Kyoto University (Japan) and Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda) under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

At a time when Africa and Asia are entering into new forms of mutual dialogue, commerce and exchange, this refreshing collaboration between scholars on four continents is a welcome addition to the field. Whether engaging with issues of gun control, of the AIDS epidemic, of ethnic tensions, or the challenges posed by sculpture and the arts among others, the essays in the volume provoke us to think anew about scholarly practice and its potential contribution in making ours a better world. The compelling essays range in topic range from conflict resolution to art and AIDS awareness, contemporary social identities to differing views of immorality. Threading through chapters are notions of the self and inside/outside politics of representation in the constantly changing circumstances of contemporary eastern Africa. Mudimbe's epilog essay contextualizes the papers through reflections on a conference as practice that is, as a convergence of insight and experience as communicated to and with others.