As our societies in Europe and America struggle with economic inequality, police violence and social injustice, it is quite clear that we are still dealing with the long-term after effects of colonialism and historic racism. This power imbalance is visible in the cultures we inhabit and the languages we speak. Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, half are endangered and may disappear by the end of the century. In fact, we are losing one language every two weeks. How do we ensure not only that languages survive, but that no one language rules over the others? How can languages interact on a basis of mutual respect rather than domination and supremacy? In this new episode of Vis A Vis, I speak to Columbia philosophy professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne, who has long thought about these issues. In his latest book, De langue à langue. L’hospitalité de la traduction (From language to language. The hospitality of translation), he describes translation as an antidote to colonialism and to the asymmetric power relations it creates. Translation, he claims, forces us to take a step back from our own language, in order to welcome the Other in our midst and open a pathway to our common humanity.
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Souleymane Bachir Diagne received his academic training in France. An alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure, he holds an agrégation in Philosophy (1978) and he took his Doctorat d’État in philosophy at the Sorbonne (1988) where he also took his BA (1977). Before joining Columbia University in 2008 he taught philosophy for many years at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar (Senegal) and at Northwestern University. His field of research includes history of logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy, African philosophy and literature. He is the author of African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude (Seagull Books, 2011), The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa, (Dakar, Codesria, 2016), Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with Western Tradition, (New York, Columbia University Press, 2018). His book, Bergson postcolonial. L’élan vital dans la pensée de Senghor et de Mohamed Iqbal, (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 2011) is forthcoming in an English version to be published by Fordham University Press. That book was awarded the Dagnan-Bouveret prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for 2011 and on that same year professor Diagne received the Edouard Glissant Prize for his work. Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s current teaching interests include history of early modern philosophy, philosophy and Sufism in the Islamic world, African philosophy and literature, twentieth century French philosophy.
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Credits
Host: Dr. Emmanuel Kattan
Editor and Producer: Monica Beatrice Hunter-Hart
Producer: Abdibasid Ali