{"id":75498,"date":"2026-03-23T12:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T09:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art50.net\/the-ink-of-the-scholars-reflections-on-philosophy-in-africa-souleymane-bachir-diagne\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T12:37:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T09:37:05","slug":"the-ink-of-the-scholars-reflections-on-philosophy-in-africa-souleymane-bachir-diagne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/the-ink-of-the-scholars-reflections-on-philosophy-in-africa-souleymane-bachir-diagne\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa \u2014 Souleymane Bachir Diagne"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Focusing on the written intellectual tradition of African thought, this book powerfully demonstrates that philosophy cannot be confined within geographical boundaries. Souleymane Bachir Diagne challenges reductive views that associate Africa solely with oral culture by foregrounding intellectual exchanges between the Islamic world and Africa, practices of translation, and the circulation of texts. Drawing on historical centers of knowledge such as Timbuktu, he reconsiders the role of writing, archives, and intellectual continuity across the continent.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>As preparations for the 2026 Venice Biennale were underway, curator Koyo Kouoh\u2014who passed away unexpectedly\u2014highlighted the book in a May 2025 interview with the Financial Times, stating:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe best book I\u2019ve read in the past year was The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa by Souleymane Bachir Diagne, one of our most brilliant thinkers. He challenges the idea that there isn\u2019t a philosophical framework to African societies. There are ideas around Africans being the great architects of hospitality, and Diagne reflects on what the African approach to humanity is. What does it mean to be careful, mindful and caring? It\u2019s not just about welcoming people into your home or feeding them. Hospitality is about caring for people, making them feel comfortable in your environment\u2014it\u2019s intellectual and emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Book was published in 2016 by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Cover Image: \u00a9 Mus\u00e9e du Louvre\/Olivier Ouadah<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Focusing on the written intellectual tradition of African thought, this book powerfully demonstrates that philosophy cannot be confined within geographical boundaries. Souleymane Bachir Diagne challenges reductive views that associate Africa solely with oral culture by foregrounding intellectual exchanges between the Islamic world and Africa, practices of translation, and the circulation of texts. Drawing on historical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1456,"featured_media":75496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1839],"tags":[4872],"class_list":["post-75498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-books","tag-souleymane-bachir-diagne"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75498"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75501,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75498\/revisions\/75501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art50.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}