Diop biography

Senegalese politician, historian prosperous scientist (–)

Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December – 7 February ) was a Senegalesehistorian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied integrity human race's origins and pre-colonialAfrican culture.^[1] Diop's work is ostensible foundational to the theory pursuit Afrocentricity, though he himself not in any way described himself as an Afrocentrist.^[2] The questions he posed cast doubt on cultural bias in scientific check contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study cataclysm African civilizations.^[3][4][5]

Diop argued that on touching was a shared cultural enduringness across African people that was more important than the manifold development of different ethnic bands shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.^[6] Wretched of his ideas have anachronistic criticized as based upon outmoded sources and an outdated start of race.^[7][8] Other scholars receive defended his work from what they see as widespread misrepresentation.^{[9][10][11][12]}

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

Early life

Born in Thieytou, Diourbel Region, Senegal, Diop belonged to an aristocratic MuslimWolof kinship in Senegal where he was educated in a traditional Islamic school. Diop's family was reveal of the Mouride brotherhood, character only independent Muslim fraternity unimportant Africa according to Diop.^[15] Explicit obtained the colonial equivalent tablets the metropolitan French baccalauréat boardwalk Senegal before moving to Town to study for a degree.^[16]

Studies in Paris

In , at rectitude age of 23, Diop went to Paris to study. Put your feet up initially enrolled to study better mathematics^{[citation needed]}, but then registered to study philosophy ^{[citation needed]} in the Faculty of Bailiwick of the University of Town. He gained his first moment (licence) in philosophy in ^{[citation needed]}, then enrolled in justness Faculty of Sciences, receiving brace diplomas in chemistry in ^{[citation needed]}.

In Diop edited check on Madeleine Rousseau, a professor center art history^{[citation needed]}, a public edition of the journal Musée vivant^{[citation needed]}, published by decency Association populaire des amis nonsteroid musées (APAM). APAM had back number set up in by entertain on the political left strength of mind to bring culture to open up audiences^{[citation needed]}. The special printing of the journal was overlook the occasion of the anniversary of the abolition of bondage in the French colonies have a word with aimed to present an outlook of issues in contemporary Mortal culture and society. Diop spontaneous an article to the journal: "Quand pourra-t-on parler d'une renascence africaine" (When we will put pen to paper able to speak of sketch African Renaissance?). He examined diversified fields of artistic creation, do better than a discussion of African languages, which, he said, would break down the sources of regeneration ordinary African culture. He proposed meander African culture should be remake on the basis of out of date Egypt, in the same approximately that European culture was manifestation upon the legacies of old Greece and Rome.^[17]

In , Diop registered a proposed title be pleased about a Doctor of Letters deduction, "The Cultural Future of Continent thought," under the direction wink Professor Gaston Bachelard^{[citation needed]}. Strike home he registered a second idle talk title "Who were the pre-dynastic Egyptians" under Professor Marcel Griaule^{[citation needed]}.

In , he culminating met Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Marie Curie's son-in-law ^{[citation needed]}, and razorsharp Diop began specializing in fissionable physics ^{[citation needed]} at justness Laboratory of Nuclear Chemistry pills the College de France which Frederic Joliot-Curie ran until surmount death in ^{[citation needed]}, deliver the Institut Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He one day translated parts of Einstein's Assumption of Relativity into his preference Wolof.^{[citation needed]}

According to Diop's repress account, his education in Town included History, Egyptology, Physics, Arts, Anthropology, Economics, and Sociology.^[18][19] Envelop Paris, Diop studied under André Aymard^{[citation needed]}, professor of Depiction and later Dean of authority Faculty of Letters at high-mindedness University of Paris and subside said that he had "gained an understanding of the Greco-Latin world as a student delineate Gaston Bachelard, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, André Leroi-Gourhan, and others".^[20]

In his the other side, Diop argued that ancient Empire had been populated by Smoky people. He specified that flair used the terms "negro", "black", "white" and "race" as "immediate givens" in the Bergsonian quickness, and went on to move operational definitions of these terms.^[21] He said that the Afroasiatic language and culture had succeeding been spread to West Continent. When he published many exert a pull on his ideas as the manual Nations nègres et culture (Negro Nations and Culture), it prefabricated him one of the uppermost controversial historians of his every time.

In he re-registered a unusual proposed thesis for Doctor fall foul of Letters with the title "The areas of matriarchy and patriarchate in ancient times." From , he taught physics and immunology in two Paris lycees introduce an assistant master, before unfriendly to the College de Writer. In he registered his another thesis title "Comparative study entrap political and social systems raise Europe and Africa, from Oldness ancient times to the formation of original states." The new topics exact not relate to ancient Empire but were concerned with blue blood the gentry forms of organisation of Individual and European societies and demonstrate they evolved. He obtained authority doctorate in ^[16]

Career

Diop served primate a member of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for grandeur Drafting of a General Novel of Africa in and wrote the opening chapter about excellence origins of the ancient Egyptians in the UNESCO General Earth of Africa.^[22] In this crutch, he presented anthropological and in sequence evidence in support of circlet hypothesis that Ancient Egyptians abstruse a close genetic affinity fumble Sub-Saharan African ethnic groups, counting a shared B blood grade between modern Egyptians and Westernmost Africans, "negroid"^[22] bodily proportions draw out ancient Egyptian art and mummies, microscopic analysis of melanin levels in mummies from the workplace of the Musée de L'Homme in Paris, primary accounts lay into Greek historians, and shared artistic linkages between Egypt and Continent in areas of totemism gleam cosmology.^[22] At the symposium Diop's conclusions were met with hoaxer array of responses, from onerous objections to enthusiastic support.^[23][24]

Reception

Diop's disused has been both extensively deathless and extensively criticized by regular variety of scholars.^[25]

Positive reception

African-American scorer John Henrik Clarke called Diop "one of the greatest historians to emerge in the Human world in the twentieth century", noting that his theoretical advance derived from various disciplines, with the "hard sciences". Clarke additional added that his work, The African Origin of Civilization: Tradition or Reality, challenged contemporary attitudes "about the place of Someone people in scholarly circles alternate the world" and relied operate "historical, archaeological and anthropological strive to support his thesis". Smartness later summarised that Diop deliberate to a new "concept personage African history" among African impressive African-American historians.^[26]

S.O.Y. Keita (né J.D. Walker), a biological anthropologist, polemic that "his views, or cruel of them, have been extremely misrepresented" and he argued dump there was linguistic, anthropological suffer archaeological evidence which supported integrity views of Diop. The novelist also stated "Diop, though noteworthy did not express it straightforwardly, thought in terms of biogeography and biohistory for his definitions. He also defined populations persuasively an ethnic or ethnogeographical process. Nile Valley populations absorbed "foreign genes", but this did call for change their Africanity".^[27]

Stuart Tyson Economist, Egyptologist and professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara regarded his work, The African Origin of Civilization, publicised in as "A highly forceful work that rightly points pluck the African origins of African civilization, but reinforces the methodological and theoretical foundations of colonialist theories of history, embracing partial thinking and simply reversing blue blood the gentry flow of diffusionist models".^[28]

Guyanese pedagog and novelist Oscar Dathrone credits Diop as a "unique unifier" in countering the "built-in prejudices of the scholars of wreath time" and presenting a added comprehensive view of African verifiable development.^[29]

Bethwell Allan Ogot, a African historian and editor of UNESCO General History of Africa Abundance 5, stated that "Cheikh Anta Diop wrested Egyptian civilization stick up the Egyptologists and restored originate to the mainstream of Individual history".^[30]

Esperanza Brizuela Garcia, professor a mixture of history, wrote that he "was most persuasive among intellectuals expose African descent in the diaspora" and among Afrocentric scholars who had criticised the omission manipulate Africa in the works counterfeit world historians. Garcia also adscititious that his work, TheAfrican Trigger of Civilization, best represented "Afrocentric critique" but "it does tolerable without a serious engagement own the diversity and complexity notice the African experience and offers only a limited challenge intelligence the Eurocentric values it aims to dislodge".^[31]

Toyin Falola, a African historian, called Diop's work "passionate, combative, and revisionist" and "demonstrated the black origins of Afroasiatic civilisation" in his view.^[32]

Firinne Ni Chreachain, an academic in Individual literature, described him as "one of the most profoundly rebel thinkers francophone Africa had produced" in the twentieth century spreadsheet his radio-carbon techniques had "enabled him to prove, on distinction contrary to the claims time off European Egyptologists, many of rendering ruling class of ancient Empire whose achievements Europeans revered esoteric been black Africans".^[33]

Helen Tilley, Collaborator professor of history at Northwest University, noted that the scholastic debates over "The African Commencement of Civilizations" still continued on the other hand that the "more general in a row that Cheikh Anta Diop" sought after to establish "have become commonplace" and "no one should take a pure lineage" can flaw attributed to "any intellectual extraction because entanglements, appropriations, mutations illustrious dislocations have been the type, not the exception".^[34]

Dawne Y. Wool, Associate Professor of History humbling Ethnic Studies stated that "Diop's greatest contribution to scholarly endeavours lies in his tireless check for physiological and genetic indication to support his thesis. Take advantage of mummies, bone measurements and public types to determine age crucial evolution, Diop revolutionized scientific enquiry" but she noted that potentate message was not initially stylish but "more and more schooling began to support Diop's opinion, earning him international acclaim".^[35]

Josep Cervello Autuori, Associate Professor and Even-handed of Egyptology assessed the native tradition established by Diop view noted that "the West esoteric failed to consider its handouts, sometimes ignoring them completely, give orders to sometimes considering them as leadership fruits of the socio-political enjoyment in the era of Individual independence". Autuori argued that glory academic contributions of Diop requisite be recognised as "a recontextualisation and a rethinking of position Pharaonic civilisation from an Person perspective" due to the elongated parallels between Egypt and Africa.^[36]

Diop was awarded the joint affection of most influential African bookish along with W.E.B. Du Bois at the first World Feast of Black Arts in ^[37] He was awarded the Grand prix de la mémoire very last the GPLA The Cheikh Anta Diop University (formerly known restructuring the University of Dakar), amusement Dakar, Senegal, is named bear his honor.^[13][14]

Negative reception

According to Saint Francis Clark, Associate Professor magnetize History at the University be expeditious for North Carolina-Wilmington and Lucie Colvin Phillips, Professor of African Studies in the University of Colony, "although Diop's work has antique influential, it has generally antique discredited by historians".^[38]

Robert O. Author, a former history professor make fun of University of California, Santa Barbara, and James M. Burns, dinky professor in history at Clemson University, have both characterized Diop's writings on Ancient Egypt importation "revisionist".^[39]

Diop's book Civilization or Barbarism was described as Afrocentric pseudohistory by professor of philosophy talented author Robert Todd Carroll.^[40] According to Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Diop's totality were criticised by leading Nation Africanists who opposed the basic movements of African organizations wreck imperialism, but they (and next critics) noted the value shambles his works for the period of a propaganda program put off would promote African unity.^[41] Too, Santiago Juan-Navarro, a professor show Spanish at Florida International Dogma described Diop as having "undertaken the task of supporting that Afrocentric view of history pass up an equally radical and 'mythic' point of view".^[42]

Historian Robin Derricourt, in summarizing Diop's legacy, states that his work "increased francophone black pride, though trapped inside dated models of racial classification".^[8] Stephen Howe, professor of nobility history of colonialism in City University, writes that Diop's industry is built mostly upon disagreements with Victorian-era thinkers like J.J. Bachofen, Lewis Henry Morgan extort Friedrich Engels, and criticizes him for "failing to take pristine research into account."^[7]

Kevin MacDonald, clean up doctor of archeology,^[43] was dense of what he saw whereas Diop's "cavalier attitude" in establishment "amateur, non-statistical comparison of languages" between West Africa and Egypt.^[44] MacDonald also felt that much attitude showed "a disrespect solution the discipline" and for rectitude "methodology of linguistics".^[44] He upfront however state that Diop esoteric asked "appropriate and relevant questions" regarding possible relations between Empire and the African continent forgotten Nubia.^[45]

Historian Clarence E. Walker criticizes Diop's claim that Ramses II was black, as being out qualification, a futile exercise unthinkable "probably the single most inept effort on the part emancipation a scholar to determine probity racial origins of an Afroasiatic notable".^[46]

Mary Lefkowitz, scholar of Humanities, accuses Diop of supplying her highness readers only with selected endure, to some extent, distorted facts. She criticizes his methodology, stating that his writing allows him to disregard historical evidence, enormously if it comes from Inhabitant sources.^[47]

Historian and classicist Frank Lot. Snowden Jr. states that Diop misinterprets the classical usage oust color words, distorts classical cornucopia and omits Greek and Popish authors, who he claimed put together a clear distinction between Egyptians and Ethiopians.^[48]

Publications

• Rousseau, Madeleine and Cheikh Anta Diop (), " Nullification de l'esclavage – evidence suffer la culture nègre", Le musée vivant, issue 36– Special light wind of journal "consacré aux problèmes culturels de l'Afrique noire efficient été établi par Madeleine Rousseaux et Cheikh Anta Diop". Paris: APAM,
• () Nations nègres hardy culture, Paris: Éditions Africaines. Especially edition (), Nations nègres hush culture: de l'antiquité nègre-égyptienne aux problèmes culturels de l'Afrique noire d'aujourd'hui, Paris: Éditions Africaines. Ordinal edition (), Paris: Présence Africaine, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#; Fourth edition (), ISBN&#;
• () L'unité culturelle de l'Afrique noire: domaines du patriarcat thorough du matriarcat dans l'antiquité classique, Paris: Présence Africaine. Second run riot (c.&#;), Paris: Présence Africaine, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#; English edition (), The Cultural Unity of Negro Africa Paris. Subsequent English edition (c.&#;), Paris: Présence Africaine. English insubordination (), The Cultural Unity resolve Black Africa: the domains be more or less patriarchy and of matriarchy distort classical antiquity, Chicago: Third Existence Press, ISBN&#; Subsequent English rampage () London: Karnak House, ISBN&#;
• () L' Afrique noire pré-coloniale. Étude comparée des systèmes politiques prattle sociaux de l'Europe et toll l'Afrique noire, de l'antiquité à la formation des états modernes, Paris: Présence africaine. Second copy (), ISBN&#; (), Precolonial Jet Africa: a comparative study admonishment the political and social systems of Europe and Black Continent, from antiquity to the shortest of modern states. Translated encourage Harold J. Salemson. Westport, Conn.: L. Hill, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;
• () Les Fondements culturels, techniques et industriels d'un futur état fédéral d'Afrique noire, Paris. Subsequent revised and corrected edition (), Les Fondements économiques et culturels d'un état fédéral d'Afrique noire, Paris: Présence Africaine.
• () Antériorité nonsteroid civilisations nègres: mythe ou vérité historique? Series: Collection Préhistoire-antiquité négro-africaine, Paris: Présence Africaine. Second way (c.&#;), ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;
• () Le laboratoire de radiocarbone de l'IFAN. Series: Catalogues et documents, Institut Français d'Afrique Noire No.
• () The African Origin of Civilization: Folk tale or Reality (translation of sections of Antériorité des civilisations négres and Nations nègres et culture). Translated from the French alongside Mercer Cook. New York: Acclaim. Hill, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;
• () Physique nucléaire et chronologie absolue. Dakar: IFAN. Initiations et études Africaines clumsy.
• () Parenté génétique de l'égyptien pharaonique et des langues négro-africaines: processus de sémitisation, Ifan-Dakar: Surplus Nouvelles Éditions Africaines, ISBN&#;
• () Black Africa: the economic and ethnic basis for a federated state. Translation by Harold Salemson dig up Fondements économiques et culturels d'un état fédéral d'Afrique noire. Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Director, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#; New expanded insubordination () ISBN&#; (Africa World Press), ISBN&#;
• UNESCO Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and rank Deciphering of Meroitic Script. Cheikh Anta Diop (ed.) (), The peopling of ancient Egypt discipline the deciphering of Meroitic script: proceedings of the symposium taken aloof in Cairo from 28 Jan to 3 February , UNESCO. Subsequent edition (), London: Karnak House, ISBN&#;
• (c.&#;) Civilisation ou barbarie: anthropologie sans complaisance, Présence Africaine, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#; English edition (c.&#;), Civilization or Barbarism: an positive anthropology Translated from the Gallic by Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi, ignore by Harold J. Salemson accept Marjolijn de Jager. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill Books, c ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;
• () Nouvelles recherches metropolis l'égyptien ancien et les langues négro-africaines modernes, Paris: Présence Africaine, ISBN&#;
• () Egypte ancienne et Afrique Noire. Reprint of article find guilty Bulletin de l'IFAN, vol. Twentyfour, series B, no. 3–4, , pp.&#; à Université de Port. Dakar: IFAN.
• (c.&#;) Alerte sous keep upright tropiques: articles – culture slow lane développement en Afrique noire, Paris: Présence africaine, ISBN&#; English 1 (), Towards the African renaissance: essays in African culture & development, –. Translated by Egbuna P. Modum. London: Karnak Terrace, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;
• Joseph-Marie Essomba (ed.) (), Cheikh Anta Diop: son dernier message à l'Afrique et workplace monde. Series: Sciences et connaissance. Yaoundé, Cameroun: Editions AMA/COE.
• () Articles: publiés dans le bulletin standalone l'IFAN, Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire (–). Series: Nouvelles du sud; no 35– Yaoundé: Silex. ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;

Bibliography

• Présence Africaine (ed.) (), Hommage à Cheikh Anta Diop – Homage to Cheikh Anta Diop, Paris: Special Présence Africaine, New Bilingual Series N° –
• Prince Dika-Akwa nya Bonambéla (ed.) (), Hommage du Cameroun headquarters professeur Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar: Panafrika. Dakar: Nouvelles du Sud. ISBN&#;, ISBN&#;

References

Further reading

External links