V. Y. Mudimbe

Who is V. Y. Mudimbe?

Valentin-Yves Mudimbe is a philosopher, professor, and author of poems, novels, and books and articles about African culture. He was born in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a young man, he joined a monastery, but left in 1962 in order to study the forces that shaped African history. He studied in Louvain, came back to Congo and flew to the USA in 1979 for political reasons. After teaching at Haverford College and Stanford University, he is currently the Newman Ivey White Professor of Literature at Duke University. His work has had a major impact on many disciplines including Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Literature, and History.

He is generally considered as the equivalent of Edward Saïd in African studies, notably because of his major book The Invention of Africa, an essay widely regarded as being as significant in African studies as Saïd's Orientalism. A considerable body of work has been devoted to Mudimbe's publications.

Mudimbe focuses most closely on phenomenology, structuralism, mythical narratives, and the practice and use of language. As a professor, he teaches classes on these topics, as well as on ancient Greek cultural geography.