Cheikh Anta Diop

Cheikh Anta Diop
Diop as a university student in Paris
in the late 1940s
Born
Seex Anta Jóob (in Wolof)

(1923-12-29)29 December 1923
Diourbel Region, Senegal
Died7 February 1986(1986-02-07) (aged 62)
Dakar, Senegal
NationalitySenegalese
Occupation(s)Historian, anthropologist, physicist, politician

Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.[1] Diop's work is considered foundational to the theory of Afrocentricity, though he himself never described himself as an Afrocentrist.[2] The questions he posed about cultural bias in scientific research contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study of African civilizations.[3][4][5]

Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African people that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.[6] Some of his ideas have been criticized as based upon outdated sources and an outdated conception of race.[7][8] Other scholars have defended his work from what they see as widespread misrepresentation.[9][10][11][12]

Cheikh Anta Diop University (formerly known as the University of Dakar), in Dakar, Senegal, is named after him.[13][14]

  1. ^ Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Appiah, Kwame Anthony, eds. (2010). "Diop, Cheikh Anta". Encyclopedia of Africa. University of Oxford Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9.
  2. ^ Molefi Kete Asante, "Cheikh Anta Diop: An Intellectual Portrait" (Univ of Sankore Press: December 30, 2007)
  3. ^ Nyamnjoh, Francis B.; Devisch, René (2011). The Postcolonial Turn: Re-Imagining Anthropology and Africa. Leiden: Langaa. p. 17. ISBN 978-9956-726-81-3.
  4. ^ Gwiyani-Nkhoma, Bryson (2006). "Towards an African historical thought: Cheikh Anta Diop's contribution". Journal of Humanities. 20 (1): 107–123.
  5. ^ Dunstan, Sarah C. (2023), Manela, Erez; Streets-Salter, Heather (eds.), "Cheikh Anta Diop's Recovery of Egypt: African History as Anticolonial Practice", The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle against Empire, Cambridge University Press, pp. 135–161, doi:10.1017/9781009359115.009, ISBN 978-1-009-35912-2
  6. ^ Cheikh, Anta Diop, The Cultural Unity of Negro Africa (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1963), English translation: The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity (London: Karnak House: 1989), pp. 53–111.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Walker, J. D. (1995). "The Misrepresentation of Diop's Views". Journal of Black Studies. 26 (1): 77–85. doi:10.1177/002193479502600106. ISSN 0021-9347. JSTOR 2784711. S2CID 144667194.
  10. ^ MOITT, Bernard (1989). "Cheikh Anta Diop and the African Diaspora: Historical Continuity And Socio-Cultural Symbolism". Présence Africaine. 149–150 (149/150): 347–360. doi:10.3917/presa.149.0347. ISSN 0032-7638. JSTOR 24351996.
  11. ^ Verharen, Charles C. (1997). "In and Out of Africa Misreading Afrocentrism". Présence Africaine. 156 (2): 163–185. doi:10.3917/presa.156.0163. ISSN 0032-7638. JSTOR 24351662.
  12. ^ Momoh, Abubakar (2003). "Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? In Search of the Ideational Basis of Afro-Pessimism". African Journal of Political Science / Revue Africaine de Science Politique. 8 (1): 31–57. ISSN 1027-0353. JSTOR 23493340.
  13. ^ Touré, Maelenn-Kégni, "Cheikh Anta Diop University (1957--)", BlackPast.org.
  14. ^ "University Cheikh Anta Diop", Encyclopædia Britannica.