A pioneering philosopher, novelist, poet and transdisciplinary scholar, Duke emeritus professor of Literature Valentin-Yves Mudimbe passed away on April 21 at the age of 83. Mudimbe was among the earliest and most profound challengers of representations of Africa in global thought.
His 1988 masterpiece “The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge” reoriented African studies, insisting on a more reflexive, decolonial and critically engaged practice of knowledge.
Born in the Belgian Congo in 1941, Mudimbe earned his Doctorat en Philosophie et Lettres from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1970. He held teaching positions at the Universities of Louvain, Paris-Nanterre, Zaire, Stanford and Haverford College, before joining Duke as the Newman Ivey White Professor of Literature. He mentored generations of scholars and shaped curricula in French existentialism, phenomenology, mythical narratives and African epistemologies before retiring in 2014.
Though deeply rooted in philosophy, Mudimbe’s work defied classification, encompassing literature, linguistics, history, politics, geopolitics and cultural studies. His writings, poetry, novels and scholarly essays consistently challenged the structures that shaped the understanding of African identities and histories.
“Sometimes I might introduce myself as a teacher, at other times as an African scholar, or in other circumstances I may be introduced as someone who is interested, let's say, in phenomenology, or the history of ideas,” he shared in a conversation with Gaurav Desai in 1991. “When we define ourselves, thanks to the expectation we believe that others are having of us, we are limiting, we are simplifying, the complexity of who we are.”
Felwine Sarr, Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of French and Francophone Studies, said Mudimbe was one of the first authors “to think about the possibility of building African social sciences and African humanities aside from the European invention of Africa.” He pointed to the 1982 book of essays “The Scent of the Father.” The father of the title refers to Western intellectual discourse on Africa dating back to Herodotus.
“I think his contribution is absolutely how to rethink the humanities from an African perspective and how to be able to produce knowledge that is in line with the historical dynamic of the continent,” said Sarr. “Valentin wanted to open the space for thinking about what does it mean to produce knowledge on African societies and what does it currently cost us to produce this knowledge from what he called the European or Western gaze.”
Throughout his career, Mudimbe was awarded honorary doctorates from Université Paris VII Diderot, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Université de Lubumbashi — which houses the Bibliothèque Mudimbe. He received the esteemed Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association in 1989 and was a member of the Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Française, as well as of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning. He was an Honorary Corresponding Member of Belgium’s Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre Mer, and chaired the International African Institute (SOAS) at the University of London.
Mudimbe's texts continue to resonate deeply within contemporary scholarship.
“One of the giants of African philosophy has left us,” said Tsitsi Jaji, the Helen L. Bevington Associate Professor of Modern Poetry. “‘The Invention of Africa’ and ‘The Idea of Africa’ were two of the most consequential books I read as an undergrad at Oberlin. The pleasure of ploughing through such erudite yet lucid writing inspired me to pursue doctoral studies.
“In years to come, I hope that his writings in French and English will meet each other in translation, and that we will read the wisdom of ancestors into our present, always emergent future.”
Grant Farred, professor of Africana Studies and Literature at Cornell University, and previously Mudimbe’s colleague at Duke, shares that Mudimbe was as generous a colleague as he was an interlocutor. “He sought always to find in that which he was reading the germ of a thought, an idea, which could be enriched through extended engagement. It is the hallmark of his work, manifested in the way in which he quotes or invokes to show the value of that work.
“His was a capacious mind. It is, however, and one says this without being in the least provincial for V-Y was nothing if not a cosmopolitan intellectual, in his capacity to mentor so many African and diasporic scholars that his loss will be felt most keenly. He inspired so many of us in and through the plenitude of his thinking.”
Sarr added that Mudimbe’s legacy goes beyond his scholarship and includes how he inspired other scholars, himself included, to seek new paths of knowledge on Africa.
“It is absolutely essential that his work be carried on.”
A reception in Mudimbe’s honor will be held from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 26, at Walker's Funeral Home of Chapel Hill (11680 US Hwy 15 501, Chapel Hill, NC 27517). Family and friends are welcome to send flowers or share their condolences on his memorial page.