Description:

Enlightenment-generated myths construct the African as an empirical anthropological type, a rude/primitive counterpoint of European civility.

However, colonialism presents a particular variation of the discourse of difference. The discourse of colonial difference continually produces and reproduces the African not only as different but as fit for colonial domination. Accordingly, the burden of colonialism on the one hand is to turn the savage African into a civilised man - to present him/her with the gift of human subjectivity. On the other hand, because the same discourse must produce the truth of colonial difference it represents the African as innately incapable of the human sentiment and/or civility. This simple contradiction dogs the reality of colonial modernity: in the face of colonially promised sameness colonial modernity together with its attendant disciplinary knowledges continually (re)produces the African as an exemplary figure of cultural difference - an anthropological type.

Dinner and light refreshments will be provided.