Black existentialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_existentialism

Black existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world". Although it shares a word with existentialism and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, Black existentialism is "is predicated on the liberation of all Black people in the world from oppression". Black existentialism may also be seen as method, which allows one to read works by African-American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison in an existentialist frame. As well as the work of Civil Rights Activists such as Malcolm X and Cornel West. Lewis Gordon argues that Black existentialism is not only existential philosophy produced by Black philosophers but is also thought that addresses the intersection of problems of existence in black contexts.

Black Existential Philosophy

Black existential philosophy is a subset of Africana philosophy and Black philosophical thought. Africana philosophy is a form of philosophy emerging out of the critical thought of the African diaspora. This study is also referred to as 'Critical Race Theory' by some scholars. Black philosophical thought also pertains to the ideas emerging from Black-designated peoples. Such people include, for example, Australian Aboriginal people, who often refer to themselves as "Black." Thus, there is also work in Black existential philosophy from Australia, such as those organized through forums and articles by Danielle Davis in the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. In the United States, Black existentialism emerged with the work and theories of sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois in the late 1800s. Since the Civil Rights movement, Black existentialism has been expanded upon by notable activists such as Malcolm X and Cornel West.

The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University earned his degree in sociology, however the work of W. E. B. Du Bois has been honored in the canon of African-American philosophy. Du Bois' notion of double consciousness has been revisited by many scholars as a notion doused in existentialism. Du Bois addressed several problems germane to Black existential philosophy. He raised the question of Black suffering as a philosophical problem. Was there meaning behind such suffering? He also observed that Black people were often studied and addressed in public discussions as problems of the modern world instead of as people facing problems raised by modern life. Black people, he argued, often faced double standards in their efforts to achieve equality in the wake of enslavement, colonialism, and racial apartheid. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "double consciousness." The twoness was the experience of being "black" and "American," where the two were treated as contradictory. Double consciousness followed in two forms. The first was of the experience of being seen from the perspective of white supremacy and anti-black racism. It was from the perspective of seeing themselves as lowly and inferior. The second, however, as Paget Henry argues, involves seeing the contradictions of a system that in effect blames the victim. That form of double consciousness involves seeing the injustice of a social system that limits possibilities for some groups and creates advantages for others while expecting both to perform equally. That Black people were imprisoned for challenging the injustices of a social system born on the memorable phrase, "All men are created equal...," is a case in point, and the subsequent criticism of whether "men" meant "women too" pushes this point further, as Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, and other earlier 19th-century black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of black music, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner-life of Black people, which he referred to as their "soul," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls". Du Bois also raised the problem of history in the study of Black existence. He noticed that double standards affected how history is told, and that the misrepresentation of history as an apology for white supremacy and colonialism led to the degradation of Black people as passive objects of history instead of makers of history. This occlusion depended on denying the struggles for freedom waged by Black people in the effort to expand the reach of freedom in the modern world.

A danger of Black suffering is that it could lead to a sense of pointlessness of Black existence and a lack of self-worth. Cornel West has addressed the problem of Black nihilism and its effect on the African-American community.

The proper starting point for the crucial debate about the prospects for Black America is an examination of the nihilism that increasingly pervades black communities. Nihilism is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. The frightening result is a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world. Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others.

Black suffering is also examined by the Martinican philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon (1925–1961). In his book Black Skin, White Masks (Grove Press, 1967; original French 1952), he argued that the modern world afforded no model of a normal Black adult. Instead, there are the pathologies of the Black soul, which he calls a white construction. This problem placed Black people in an alienated relationship with language, love, and even their inner dream life. Although he was careful to claim that there are exceptions to these claims, the general situation is as follows. Blacks who master the dominant language are treated either as not really black or receive much suspicion. Worse, they find themselves seeking white recognition, which affirms the role of whites as the standard by which they are judged. The matter repeats itself with love. Black women and Black men seeking white recognition do so, he argued, through asking for recognition from white male symbols of authority. That effort is self-deceiving. It makes such Black women ask to be loved as white instead of as women, and it makes such Black males fail to be men. Fanon also brings out the philosophical problem of reason and its relation to emotions by considering whether a flight into Négritude, the intellectual movement coined by Aimé Césaire, could enable Blacks to love themselves by rejecting white reason. But Jean-Paul Sartre's criticism in his essay "Orphée Noir" ("Black Orpheus") led Fanon into "changing his tune" by realizing that such a path was still relative to a white one and faced being overcome in expectations of a "universal" humanity, which for Sartre was a revolutionary working class. Fanon's response was that he needed not to know that, and later on in A Dying Colonialism (Grove Press, 1967; original French 1959), he pointed out that although whites created the Negro, it was the Negro who created Négritude. His point was that it was still an act of agency, and that theme of being what he called "actional" continued in his writings. At the end of Black Skin, White Masks, he asked his body to make of him a man who questions. Fanon's point was that racism and colonialism attempted to over-determine black existence, but as a question, black existence faced possibility and could thus reach beyond what is imposed upon it. In The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 1963; original French 1961), he returned to this question at the historical level by demanding the transformation of material circumstances and the development of new symbols with which to set afoot a new humanity.

Black existential philosophical thought was also influential in the South African anti-apartheid movement through the thought of Steve Bantu Biko. In I Write What I Like, Biko continues Fanon's project of thinking through alternative conceptions of humanity and offers his theory of Black Consciousness. Black consciousness applies to anyone who is involved in anti-racist struggle and is marked as the enemy of an anti-black, racist state. Thus for Biko, all people of color—indigenous Africans, Asians, mixed peoples, and whites who are "blackened" by their allegiance to anti-racism—are black. Biko presents here a political view of identity that resists a prior essence of black identity. One becomes black, reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir's observation that one becomes a woman. South African philosophers influenced by Biko's existentialism include Noël Chabani Manganyi. The influence of Biko's thought is also discussed in Andile, Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel Gibson (eds), Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Black existential philosophy came to the academy in the 1970s in the work of William R. Jones, who argued for a humanistic response to black suffering through facing the absurd as found in the thought of Albert Camus and dealing with the contradictions of theological beliefs pointed out by Jean-Paul Sartre. Jones drew upon existential philosophy to reject non-verifiable claims posed by black theology, where history is presented as God trying to liberate black people. Historical evidence, Jones suggests, says otherwise. Instead of relying on God, black people should take their lives and history into their own hands and build a better future for human kind. This is not to say that Jones took the position that blacks who believe in God should not love God. His point is that they should not rely on God for the elimination of injustice on earth.

A philosopher heavily influenced by Du Bois, Fanon, and Jones is Lewis Gordon, who argues that black existential philosophy "is marked by a centering of what is often known as the 'situation' of questioning or inquiry itself. Another term for situation is the lived- or meaning-context of concern. Implicit in the existential demand for recognizing the situation or lived-context of Africana people's being-in-the-world is the question of value raised by people who live that situation. A slave's situation can only be understood, for instance, through recognizing the fact that a slave experiences it. It is to regard the slave as a value-laden perspective in the world". Gordon later argues in Existentia Africana that such a concern leads to a focus in black existential philosophy on problems of philosophical anthropology, liberation, and critical reflection on the justification of thought itself. The first asks the question, What is a human being? The second asks how can one become free. And the third is critical even of the methods used to justify the first two. Gordon argues that these questions make sense because enslaved, colonized, and dehumanized people are forced to question their humanity. That leads to questioning the meaning of being human. He argues that concerns with liberation make sense for people who have been enslaved, colonized, and racially oppressed. Because these questions are posed as objects of inquiry and demand the transformation of consciousness such as the transition from Du Bois's first form of double consciousness to the second, critical one, Gordon advocates a black existential phenomenological approach, which he sometimes call a postcolonial phenomenology or a decolonial one.

A philosopher influenced by Gordon is Nelson Maldonado-Torres, whose Against War (Duke University Press, 2008) offers a "decolonial reduction" of the forms of knowledge used to rationalize slavery, colonialism, and racism. Drawing upon ideas from Aimé Césaire, the Lithuanian Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, Frantz Fanon, and the Argentinian philosopher Enrique Dussel, Maldonado-Torres calls the practices of dehumanization in the modern world "Hitlerism" and advocates the "decolonial sciences" (race and ethnic studies, Africana studies, women's studies) as critical forms of knowledge to articulate the humanistic project demanded by Fanon.

There is also the growing area of black feminist existential philosophy. Foundations of this area of thought are in the 19th-century and early 20th-century thought of Anna Julia Cooper, who explored problems of human worth through challenging the double standards imposed upon black populations in general and black women in particular. She argued, in response to the racist claims of black worthlessness (that the world would be better off without black people), that the measure of worth should be based on the difference between contribution and investment. Since very little was actually invested in black people but so much was produced by them, she argued that black worth exceeds that of many whites. She used the same argument to defend the worth of black women. More recently in the academy, black feminist existential philosophy is taken up by Kathryn Gines, founder of the Collegium of Black Feminist Philosophers. Gines's work brings together ideas from Cooper, Sartre, Fanon, Hannah Arendt, bell hooks, and recent work in Africana phenomenology and black popular culture in such articles as: "Sex and Sexuality in Contemporary Hip-Hop" in Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby (eds), Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason—A Series in Pop Culture and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court, 2005), and "The Black Atlantic, Afrocentricity, and Existential Phenomenology: Theoretical Tools for Black European Studies," Black European Studies, on line at Synlabor.de.

Black Existential Literature

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the archetype of black existentialist literature, is one of the most revered and reviewed novels written by an African-American writer. It presents examples of absurdism, anxiety and alienation in relation to the experience of the black male in mid-1900s America. The namelessness of the main character of the novel, a figure based on Ellison's own life, points to the trauma of black people receiving names that were forced on them from the violence of slavery. That renaming was meant to inaugurate a loss of memory, and that process of dismemberment is explored in the novel as the protagonist moves from one abusive father figure to another—white and black—to a culminating reflection on living as an invisible leech off of the system that produces light. In Ellison's novel, the only black characters who seemed somewhat free were those designated insane, as in the famous scene at the Golden Day bar where a group from an insane asylum became the critical voice early in the novel.

The African-American writer who was the closest to the Sartrean existentialist movement was Richard Wright, although Wright saw himself as working through the thought of Søren Kierkegaard with a focus on themes of dread and despair, especially in his novel The Outsider. Dismayed with his experience of American racism in the south, Wright sought refuge in a Parisian life. In France, he was heavily influenced by Les Temps modernes members Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty. The existential novels that he wrote after leaving the United States, such as The Outsider, never received the high critical acclaim of Native Son. In his famous introduction to Native Son, Wright made concrete some of the themes raised by Du Bois. He pointed to the injustice of a system in which police officers randomly arrested young black men for crimes they did not commit and prosecutors who were able to secure convictions in such cases. He also argued that Bigger Thomas, the anti-hero of the novel, was produced by such a system and is often envied by many as a form of resistance to it. Wright's insight portended the emergence, for example, of the contemporary black "gangsta," as portrayed in gangsta rap.

In retrospect, James Baldwin has been considered by others as a black existentialist writer; however he was quite critical of Richard Wright and suspicious of his relationship with French intellectuals.

Baldwin also brought questions of interracial and bisexual relationships into consideration and looked at the question of suffering as a struggle to defend the possibility of genuine human relationships in his novel Another Country.

The writings of Toni Morrison are also contributions to black existentialism. Her 1970 novel The Bluest Eye examines how "ugliness" and "beauty" dominate black women's lives as imitations of white women as the standard of beauty. Her famous novel Beloved (1987) raises the question of the trauma that haunts black existence from slavery.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University earned his degree in sociology, however the work of W. E. B. Du Bois has been honored in the canon of African-American philosophy. Du Bois' notion of double consciousness has been revisited by many scholars as a notion doused in existentialism. Du Bois addressed several problems germane to Black existential philosophy. He raised the question of Black suffering as a philosophical problem. Was there meaning behind such suffering? He also observed that Black people were often studied and addressed in public discussions as problems of the modern world instead of as people facing problems raised by modern life. Black people, he argued, often faced double standards in their efforts to achieve equality in the wake of enslavement, colonialism, and racial apartheid. This double standard led, he argued, to "twoness" and "double consciousness." The twoness was the experience of being "black" and "American," where the two were treated as contradictory. Double consciousness followed in two forms. The first was the experience of being seen from the perspective of white supremacy and anti-black racism. It was from the perspective of seeing themselves as lowly and inferior. Du Bois discusses this observation and theory in his essay, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The second, however, as Paget Henry argues, involves seeing the contradictions of a system that in effect blames the victim. That form of double consciousness involves seeing the injustice of a social system that limits possibilities for some groups and creates advantages for others while expecting both to perform equally. That Black people were imprisoned for challenging the injustices of a social system born on the memorable phrase, "All men are created equal...," is a case in point, and the subsequent criticism of whether "men" meant "women too" pushes this point further, as Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, and other earlier nineteenth-century Black critical thinkers contended. Du Bois also theorized the importance of black music, especially the spirituals, and through them raised the question of the inner life of Black people, which he referred to as their "soul," which in his discussion of double consciousness became "souls". Du Bois also raised the problem of history in the study of Black existence. He noticed that double standards affected how history is told and that the misrepresentation of history as an apology for white supremacy and colonialism led to the degradation of Black people as passive objects of history instead of makers of history. This occlusion depended on denying the struggles for freedom waged by Black people in an effort to expand the reach of freedom in the modern world.

Malcolm X

Unlike many other Black philosophers, Malcolm X was not introduced to philosophy or existentialism through higher education. Rather, he became interested in Black existentialism through his work as an activist and his relationship with Islam. In his work as an activist, Malcolm X birthed the organization of Afro-American Unity, which was concerned with "...a social, political, and economic network for creating consciousness among black people..." and to encourage Black individuals to explore the concepts of cultural self-determination and enlightenment to liberate themselves—  each of which are essential thoughts to Black existentialism.

Existentialism vs. Black Existentialism

As Black existentialism is a subset of existential philosophy, the two thoughts overlap on subjects of existence, consciousness, anxiety, nihilism, despair, and fear. However, there are also several key differences between Black existentialism and Euro-centric existentialism. One of the main differing factors is the idea of the "individual". In existentialism, the individual is the focus; one's actions, personal meaning, and awareness take centerfold. However, in Black existentialism, there is minimal focus on individualism or irreducibility. Rather, the focus is on Black consciousness and liberation on a global scale— often making comparative references to the suffering of Black individuals in the United States, and all across the African diaspora. Repeatedly, Black existential philosophers call and compare for the liberation of Black people worldwide.  Black existentialism also argues against the common misconception that all Black experience is the same. This misconception increases the struggle for Black individuals to define their identity and greater meaning. That element of identity is shared between Existentialism and Black existentialism. Both thoughts state that the human identity and experience are unique and have long been categorically distorted.

Wisdom literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_literature

Tablet of the Dialogue between a Man and His God, c. 19th–17th centuries BC, Louvre

Wisdom literature is a genre of literature common in the ancient Near East. It consists of statements by sages and the wise that offer teachings about divinity and virtue. Although this genre uses techniques of traditional oral storytelling, it was disseminated in written form.

The earliest known wisdom literature dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, originating from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These regions continued to produce wisdom literature over the subsequent two and a half millennia. Wisdom literature from Jewish, Greek, Chinese, and Indian cultures started appearing around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, Egyptian-Greek wisdom literature emerged, some elements of which were later incorporated into Islamic thought.

Much of wisdom literature can be broadly categorized into two types - conservative "positive wisdom" and critical "negative wisdom" or "vanity literature":

• Conservative Positive Wisdom - Pragmatic, real-world advice about proper behavior and actions, attaining success in life, living a good and fulfilling life, etc.. Examples of this genre include: Proverbs, The Instructions of Shuruppak, and first part of Sima Milka.
• Critical Negative Wisdom (AKA "Vanity Literature" or "Wisdom in Protest") - A more pessimistic outlook, frequently expressing skepticism about the scope of human achievements, highlighting the inevitability of mortality, advocating the rejection of all material gains, and expressing the carpe diem view that, since nothing has intrinsic value (vanity theme) and all will come to an end (memento mori theme), therefore one should just enjoy life to the fullest while they can (carpe diem theme). Examples of this genre include: Qohelet, The Ballad of Early Rulers, Enlil and Namzitarra, the second part of Sima Milka (the son's response), and Nig-Nam Nu-Kal ("Nothing is of Value").

Another common genre is existential works that deal with the relationship between man and God, divine reward and punishment, theodicy, the problem of evil, and why bad things happen to good people. The protagonist is a "just sufferer" - a good person beset by tragedy, who tries to understand his lot in life. The most well known example is the Book of Job, however it was preceded by, and likely based on, earlier Mesopotamian works such as The Babylonian Theodicy (sometimes called The Babylonian Job), Ludlul bēl nēmeqi ("I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom" or "The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer"), Dialogue between a Man and His God, and the Sumerian Man and His God.

The literary genre of mirrors for princes, which has a long history in Islamic and Western Renaissance literature, is a secular cognate of wisdom literature. In classical antiquity, the didactic poetry of Hesiod, particularly his Works and Days, was regarded as a source of knowledge similar to the wisdom literature of Egypt, Babylonia and Israel. Pre-Islamic poetry is replete with many poems of wisdom, including the poetry of Zuhayr bin Abī Sūlmā (520–609).

Ancient Mesopotamian literature

The wisdom literature from Sumer and Babylonia is among the most ancient in the world, with the Sumerian documents dating back to the third millennium BC and the Babylonian dating to the second millennium BC. Many of the extant texts uncovered at Nippur are as ancient as the 18th century BC. Most of these texts are wisdom in the form of dialogues or hymns, such as the Hymn to Enlil, the All-Beneficent from ancient Sumer.

Proverbs were particularly popular among the Sumerians, with many fables and anecdotes therein, such as the Debate Between Winter and Summer, which Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer has noted as paralleling the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 4:1–16) and the form of disputation is similar to that between Job and his friends in the Book of Job (written c. 6th century BC).

My lord, I have reflected within my reins, [...] in [my] heart. I do not know what sin I have committed. Have I [eaten] a very evil forbidden fruit? Does brother look down on brother? — Dialogue between a Man and His God, c. 19th–16th centuries BC

Several other ancient Mesopotamian texts parallel the Book of Job, including the Sumerian Man and his God (remade by the Old Babylonians into Dialogue between a Man and His God, c. 19th–16th centuries BC) and the Akkadian text, The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer; the latter text concerns a man who has been faithful his whole life and yet suffers unjustly until he is ultimately delivered from his afflictions. The ancient poem known as the Babylonian Theodicy from 17th to 10th centuries BC also features a dialogue between a sufferer and his friend on the unrighteousness of the world.

The 5th-century BC Aramaic story Words of Ahikar is full of sayings and proverbs, many similar to local Babylonian and Persian aphorisms as well as passages similar to parts of the Book of Proverbs and others to the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Sirach.

Notable examples

Instructions of Shuruppak (mid-3rd millennium BC, Sumer): The oldest/earliest known wisdom literature, as well as one of the longest-lived, and most widely disseminated in Mesopotamia. It presents advice from a father (Shuruppak) to his son (Ziusudra) on various aspects of life, from personal conduct to social relations. The Instructions contain precepts that reflect those later included in the Ten Commandments, and other sayings that are reflected in the biblical Book of Proverbs.

The Counsels of Wisdom (AKA "Teachings of the Sages"): A 150 line compilation of Sumerian and Akkadian proverbs that cover a variety of topics, including ethical conduct and wisdom. Specific topics include: what kind of company to keep, conflict avoidance and diffusion, importance of propriety in speech, the reward of personal piety, etc.

The Instructions of Ur-Ninurta (early-2nd millennium BC): Includes two wisdom sections - “the instructions of the god” and “the instructions of the farmer”. The “instructions of the god” recommend proper religious and moral behavior by contrasting the reward of the god‐fearing with the punishment of the disobedient. The “instructions of the farmer” include agricultural advice. The text ends with short expressions of humility and submission.

Instructions of Shupe‐Ameli (AKA: "S(h)ima Milka" or "Hear the Advice"): A father provides his son with conservative "Positive Wisdom" (to work with friends, avoid bad company, not desire other men's wives, etc.); however, the son counters with critical "Negative Wisdom" commonly found in the "Vanity Literature" or "Wisdom in Protest" genre of wisdom literature (it is all pointless since you will die).

Nig-Nam Nu-Kal ("Nothing is of Value"): A number of short Sumerian that celebrate life with the repeated refrain "Nothing is of worth, but life itself is sweet".

Ancient Egyptian literature

Main article: Ancient Egyptian philosophy

In ancient Egyptian literature, wisdom literature belonged to the sebayt ("teaching") genre which flourished during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and became canonical during the New Kingdom. Notable works of this genre include the Instructions of Kagemni, The Maxims of Ptahhotep, the Instructions of Amenemhat, the Loyalist Teaching. Hymns such as A Prayer to Re-Har-akhti (c. 1230 BC) feature the confession of sins and appeal for mercy:

Do not punish me for my numerous sins, [for] I am one who knows not his own self, I am a man without sense. I spend the day following after my [own] mouth, like a cow after grass.

Much of the surviving wisdom literature of ancient Egypt was concerned with the afterlife. Some of these take the form of dialogues, such as The Debate Between a Man and his Soul from 20th–18th centuries BC, which features a man from the Middle Kingdom lamenting about life as he speaks with his ba. Other texts display a variety of views concerning life after death, including the rationalist skeptical The Immortality of Writers and the Harper's Songs, the latter of which oscillates between hopeful confidence and reasonable doubt.

Hermetic tradition

Further information: Hermetica

The Corpus Hermeticum is a piece of Egyptian-Greek wisdom literature in the form of a dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus and a disciple. The majority of the text date to the 1st–4th century AD, though the original materials the texts may be older; recent scholarship confirms that the syncretic nature of Hermeticism arose during the times of Roman Egypt, but the contents of the tradition parallel the older wisdom literature of Ancient Egypt, suggesting origins during the Pharaonic Age. The Hermetic texts of the Egyptians mostly dealt with summoning spirits, animating statues, Babylonian astrology, and the then-new practice of alchemy; additional mystical subjects include divine oneness, purification of the soul, and rebirth through the enlightenment of the mind.

Islamic Hermeticism

The wisdom literature of Egyptian Hermeticism ended up as part of Islamic tradition, with his writings considered by the Abbasids as sacred inheritance from the Prophets and Hermes himself as the ancestor of the Prophet Muhammad. In the version of the Hermetic texts kept by the Ikhwan al-Safa, Hermes Trismegistus is identified as the ancient prophet Idris; according to their tradition, Idris traveled from Egypt into heaven and Eden, bringing the Black Stone back to earth when he landed in India. The star-worshipping sect known as the Sabians of Harran also believed that their doctrine descended from Hermes Trismegistus.

Biblical wisdom literature and Jewish texts

Main article: Poetic Books

Further information: Chokhmah

Illuminated manuscript depicting Job, his friends, and the leviathan, Mount Athos, c. 1300

The most famous examples of wisdom literature are found in the Bible. Wisdom is a central topic in the Sapiential Books , i.e., Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, Wisdom of Sirach, and to some extent Baruch. Not all the Psalms are usually regarded as belonging to the Wisdom tradition. Others such as Epistle of Aristeas, Pseudo-Phocylides and 4 Maccabees are also considered sapiential.

The later Sayings of the Fathers, or Pirkei Avot in the Talmud follows in the tradition of wisdom literature, focusing more on Torah study as a means for achieving a reward, rather than studying wisdom for its own sake.

Other traditions

Further information: Mirrors for princes

• Works and Days by Hesiod (c. 750–650 BC) and Hávamál from Old Norse texts (c. 1200) have both been analyzed in terms of the oral transmission of wisdom literature to other cultures.
• Subhashita , a genre of Sanskrit literature is another predominant form of wisdom poetry. Several thousands verses covering wide range of ethics and righteousness have been written and compiled in anthologies called Subhashitani by various authors through ancient and mediaeval period in India.

• Analects were a collection of aphorisms of the ancient Chinese philisopher Confucius.

African philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_philosophy

African philosophy is the philosophical discourse produced in Africa or by indigenous Africans. African philosophers are found in the various academic fields of present philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy.

One particular subject that several modern African philosophers have written about is on the subject of freedom and what it means to be free or to experience wholeness.

The term "Africana philosophy" covers the philosophy made by thinkers of African descent and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora.

Philosophy in Africa has a rich and varied history, some of which has been lost over time. Some of the world's oldest philosophical texts have been produced in Ancient Egypt, written in Hieratic and on papyrus, c. 2200–1000 BCE. One of the earliest known African philosophers was Ptahhotep, an ancient Egyptian philosopher.

In general, the ancient Greeks acknowledged their Egyptian forebears, and in the fifth century BCE, the philosopher Isocrates declared that the earliest Greek thinkers traveled to Egypt to seek knowledge; one of them Pythagoras of Samos, who "was first to bring to the Greeks all philosophy".

In the 21st century, research by Egyptologists has indicated that the word philosopher itself seems to stem from Egypt: "the founding Greek word philosophos, lover of wisdom, is itself a borrowing from and translation of the Egyptian concept mer-rekh (mr-rḫ) which literally means 'lover of wisdom,' or knowledge."

In the early and mid-twentieth century, anti-colonial movements had a tremendous effect on the development of a distinct modern African political philosophy that had resonance on both the continent and in the African diaspora. One well-known example of the economic philosophical works emerging from this period was the African socialist philosophy of Ujamaa propounded in Tanzania and other parts of Southeast Africa. These African political and economic philosophical developments also had a notable impact on the anti-colonial movements of many non-African peoples around the world.

Definition

There is some debate in defining the ethnophilosophical parameters of African philosophy and identifying what differentiates it from other philosophical traditions. One of the implicit assumptions of ethnophilosophy is that a specific culture can have a philosophy that is not applicable and accessible to all peoples and cultures in the world. In A Discourse on African Philosophy: A New Perspective on Ubuntu and Transitional Justice in South Africa, Christian B. N. Gade argues that the ethnophilosophical approach to African philosophy as a static group property is highly problematic. His research on ubuntu presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy that takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously. According to Edwin Etieyibo and Jonathon O. Chimakonam in their article “African Philosophy: Past, Present, and Future”, historical context plays an important role in African philosophy. History provides the framework in which we can inspect philosophical problems. In terms of African philosophy, one must look at the whole picture through the lens of African history.  “There are no facts without history."

African philosophy can be formally defined as a critical thinking by Africans on their experiences of reality. Nigerian born Philosopher K.C. Anyanwu defined African philosophy as "that which concerns itself with the way in which African people of the past and present make sense of their destiny and of the world in which they live.

Nigerian philosopher Joseph I. Omoregbe broadly defines a philosopher as one who attempts to understand the world's phenomena, the purpose of human existence, the nature of the world, and the place of human beings in that world. This form of natural philosophy is identifiable in Africa even before individual African philosophers can be distinguished in the sources. Like Western philosophy, African philosophy contemplates the perceptions of time, personhood, space and other subjects.

History

There is a rich and written history of ancient African philosophy - for example from ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Mali (Timbuktutu, Djenne). When it comes to the modern era and the 20th century, a new beginning is linked to the 1920s, when African individuals who had studied in the United States and Europe ("Western" locations) returned to Africa and reflected on the racial discrimination experienced abroad. Their arrival back in Africa instigated a feeling of onuma, which is an interpretation of "frustration." The onuma was felt in response to legacies of colonialism on a global scale. The renaissance of African philosophy in the 20th century is important because onuma inspired some who had traveled and returned to formulate a "systematic beginning" of philosophizing the African identity, the space of African people in history, and African contribution to humanity.

Criteria

According to some, two conflicting components are deemed integral to a work for it to be considered African philosophy. First, the piece must have a racial focus. This facet is valued by Traditionalist groups, who posit that African philosophy should be an expression of the world experienced by African individuals. African philosophy must be produced by African authors. In contrast, Universalist groups suggest that African philosophy should be analyses and critical engagement of and between individual African thinkers. A work is African philosophy based on a focal point of tradition. African philosophy must pull from African cultural backgrounds or thought processes, but it should be independent from racial considerations and use "African" only as a term of solidarity.

Methods

Communitarian method

The communitarian method of African philosophy emphasizes mutualism in thought. It is most commonly used by researchers following ubuntu. The common expression of ubuntu is that "a person is a person through a person." Leonhard Praeg, Mogobe Ramose, and Fainos Mangera implement the communitarian method.

Complementary method

The complementary method focuses on the prospect of a missing link. All variables are important in consideration of histories and identities, and no variable should be overlooked or under-considered. Additionally, all variables affect one another, so the relationship between them and their affects on other variables should be scrutinized. Mesembe Edet implements the complementary method.

Conversational method

The conversational method creates thought by assessing a relationship between oppositional works. The defender or proponent is named "nwa-swa," and the nwa swa is questioned and doubted by a disagreeing party, known as "nwa nju." The conversational method emphasizes the interconnectedness of networks within reality; the more accurate a thought should be, the more specific a location should be. This method is endorsed by the Conventional School of Psychology, and it is used by Victor Nweke and Msembe Edet.

Types

Pre-modern

North Africa

In North Africa, arguably central to the development of the ancient Egyptian philosophical tradition of Egypt and Sudan was the conception of ma'at, which roughly translated refers to 'justice', 'truth', or simply 'that which is right'. One of the earliest works of political philosophy was The Maxims of Ptahhotep, which were taught to Egyptian schoolboys for centuries.

Ancient Egypt have several philosophical texts that have been treated by scholars in recent years. In the 2018 podcast "Africana Philosophy", the philosophers Peter Adamson and Chike Jeffers devoted the first eight episodes to Egyptian philosophy. The American Philosophical Association (APA) has published a text on the classical text The Immortality of Writers ("Be a Writer"), ca. 1200 BCE. The Blog of the APA article also covers The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba from the 19th century BCE; The Teaching of Ani, 13th century BCE, which gives advice to the ordinary man; The Satire of the Trades by Khety; and the text of Amennakht (active in 1170–1140 BCE) from Deir el-Medina, whose teaching states that "it is good to finish school, better than the smell of lotus blossoms in summer".

Ancient Egyptian and other African philosophers also made important contributions to Hellenistic philosophy and Christian philosophy. According to Busiris by the ancient Greek philosopher Isocrates, who was born before Plato, "all men agree the Egyptians are the healthiest and most long of life among men; and then for the soul they introduced philosophy's training [...]". In the Hellenistic tradition, the influential philosophical school of Neoplatonism was founded by the Egyptian philosopher Plotinus in the third century CE. The Church Father and philosopher Augustine of Hippo (born in Thagaste, today's Algeria, in 354) had a Christian mother, Saint Monica, who was an Amazigh (Berber), and Augustine defined himself as an African (or Punic, of Phoenician descent).

West Africa

The most prominent of West Africa's pre-modern philosophical traditions has been identified as that of the Yoruba philosophical tradition and the distinctive worldview that emerged from it over the thousands of years of its development. Philosophical concepts such as Ifá, Omoluabi, Ashè and Emi Omo Eso were integral to this system, and the totality of its elements are contained in what is known amongst the Yoruba as the Itan. The cosmologies and philosophies of the Akan, Dogon, Serer and Dahomey were also significant.

In pre-colonial Senegambia (modern Gambia and Senegal), the 17th-century philosopher Kocc Barma Fall (b. 1586) stood out as one of the renowned philosophers in Senegambian history. His proverbs are still recited by Senegalese and Gambians alike, including in Senegambian popular culture - for example in Ousmane Sembene's films such as Guelwaar Other notable philosophical thinkers include the Gambian historian Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof, and the Malian ethnologist Amadou Hampâté Bâ.

One of the foremost scholars of Timbuktu was Ahmed Baba (1556–1627), who argued against what he called "racial slavery". One of the leading women philosophers and writers of the Sokoto Caliphate, in present-day Nigeria, was the princess Nana Asma'u (1793-1864).

Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa, there are a number of sources documenting the development of a distinct Ethiopian philosophy from the first millennium onwards. Among the most notable examples from this tradition emerge from the work of the 17th-century philosopher Zera Yacob, and that of his disciple Walda Heywat. Yacob in his writings discusses religion, morality, and existence. He comes to the belief that every person will believe their faith to be the right one and that all men are created equal.

Southern Africa

In Southern Africa and Southeast Africa the development of a distinctive Bantu philosophy addressing the nature of existence, the cosmos and humankind's relation to the world following the Bantu migration has had the most significant impact on the philosophical developments of the said regions, with the development of the philosophy of Ubuntu as one notable example emerging from this worldview.

Central & East Africa

Many Central African philosophical traditions before the Bantu migration into southern Central Africa have been identified as a uniting characteristic of many Nilotic and Sudanic peoples, ultimately giving rise to the distinctive worldviews identified in the conceptions of time, the creation of the world, human nature, and the proper relationship between mankind and nature prevalent in Dinka mythology, Maasai mythology and similar traditions.

African diaspora

Some pre-modern African diasporic philosophical traditions have also been identified, mostly produced by descendants of Africans in Europe and the Americas. One notable pre-modern diasporic African philosopher was Anthony William Amo in the 18th century, who was taken as a slave from Awukenu in what is now Ghana, and was brought up and educated in Europe where he gained doctorates in medicine and philosophy, and subsequently became a professor of philosophy at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany.

Modern

Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka has distinguished what he calls four trends in modern African philosophy: ethnophilosophy, philosophical sagacity, nationalistic–ideological philosophy, and professional philosophy. In fact it would be more realistic to call them candidates for the position of African philosophy, with the understanding that more than one of them might fit the bill. (Oruka later added two additional categories: literary/artistic philosophy, such as the work of literary figures such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Okot p'Bitek, and Taban Lo Liyong, and hermeneutic philosophy, the analysis of African languages in order to find philosophical content.) In the African diaspora, American philosopher Maulana Karenga has also been notable in presenting varied definitions for understanding modern African philosophy, especially as it relates to its earliest sources.

Achille Mbembe, a modern African philosopher

One notable contributor to professional philosophy is Achille Mbembe. He interacts with a multitude of modern subjects, including thoughts on statehood, death, capital, racism, and colonialism. He invokes attention to moral and political arguments through a tone of morality in his works. Many recent pieces from Mbembe, including Critique of Black Reason, suggest that understanding Europe as a force not at the center of the universe is a point from which philosophy and society should view the world. Mbembe asserts that he positions himself in multiple worlds of existence at one time. This method creates an empathetic point from which the world can be viewed.

Ethnophilosophy and philosophical sagacity

Henry Odera Oruka of Kenya came up with Sage Philosophy and philosophic sagacity is attributed to him. Ethnophilosophy has been used to record the beliefs found in African cultures. Such an approach treats African philosophy as consisting in a set of shared beliefs, values, categories, and assumptions that are implicit in the language, practices, and beliefs of African cultures; in short, the uniquely African worldview. As such, it is seen as an item of communal property rather than an activity for the individual.

One proponent of this form, Placide Tempels, argued in Bantu Philosophy that the metaphysical categories of the Bantu people are reflected in their linguistic categories. According to this view, African philosophy can be best understood as springing from the fundamental assumptions about reality reflected in the languages of Africa.

Another example of this sort of approach is the work of Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa of the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, who argues for the existence of an African philosophy of history stemming from traditional proverbs from the Niger Delta in his paper "An African Philosophy of History in the Oral Tradition." Alagoa argues that in African philosophy, age is seen as an important factor in gaining wisdom and interpreting the past. In support of this view, he cites proverbs such as "More days, more wisdom", and "What an old man sees seated, a youth does not see standing." Truth is seen as eternal and unchanging ("Truth never rots"), but people are subject to error ("Even a four-legged horse stumbles and falls"). It is dangerous to judge by appearances ("A large eye does not mean keen vision"), but first-hand observation can be trusted ("He who sees does not err"). The past is not seen as fundamentally different from the present, but all history is contemporary history ("A storyteller does not tell of a different season"). The future remains beyond knowledge ("Even a bird with a long neck cannot see the future"). Nevertheless, it is said, "God will outlive eternity." History is seen as vitally important ("One ignorant of his origin is nonhuman"), and historians (known as "sons of the soil") are highly revered ("The son of the soil has the python's keen eyes"). However, these arguments must be taken with a grain of cultural relativism, as the span of culture in Africa is incredibly vast, with patriarchies, matriarchies, monotheists and traditional religionists among the population, and as such the attitudes of groups of the Niger Delta cannot be applied to the whole of Africa.

Another more controversial application of this approach is embodied in the concept of Negritude. Leopold Senghor, a proponent of Negritude, argued that the distinctly African approach to reality is based on emotion rather than logic, works itself out in participation rather than analysis, and manifests itself through the arts rather than the sciences. Cheikh Anta Diop and Mubabinge Bilolo, on the other hand, while agreeing that African culture is unique, challenged the view of Africans as essentially emotional and artistic, arguing that Egypt was an African culture whose achievements in science, mathematics, architecture, and philosophy were pre-eminent. This philosophy may also be maligned as overly reductionist due to the obvious scientific and scholarly triumphs of not only ancient Egypt, but also Nubia, Meroe, as well as the great library of Timbuktu, the extensive trade networks and kingdoms of North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, the Horn of Africa and Great Zimbabwe and the other major empires of Southern, Southeast and Central Africa.

Critics of this approach argue that the actual philosophical work in producing a coherent philosophical position is being done by the academic philosopher (such as Alagoa), and that the sayings of the same culture can be selected from and organised in many different ways in order to produce very different, often contradictory systems of thought.

Philosophical sagacity is a sort of individualist version of ethnophilosophy, in which one records the beliefs of certain special members of a community. The premise here is that, although most societies demand some degree of conformity of belief and behaviour from their members, a certain few of those members reach a particularly high level of knowledge and understanding of their cultures' worldviews; such people are sages. In some cases, the sage goes beyond mere knowledge and understanding to reflection and questioning—these become the targets of philosophical sagacity.

Critics of this approach note that not all reflection and questioning is philosophical; besides, if African philosophy were to be defined purely in terms of philosophic sagacity, then the thoughts of the sages could not be African philosophy, for they did not record them from other sages. Also, on this view the only difference between non-African anthropology or ethnology and African philosophy seems to be the nationality of the researcher.

Critics argue further that the problem with both ethnophilosophy and philosophical sagacity is that there is surely an important distinction between philosophy and the history of ideas, although other philosophers consider the two topics to be remarkably similar. The argument is that no matter how interesting the beliefs of a people such as the Akan or the Yoruba may be to the philosopher, they remain beliefs, not philosophy. To call them philosophy is to use a secondary sense of that term, as in "my philosophy is live and let live."

Professional philosophy

Professional philosophy is usually identified as that produced by African philosophers trained in the Western philosophical tradition, that embraces a universal view of the methods and concerns of philosophy. Those philosophers identified in this category often explicitly reject the assumptions of ethnophilosophy and adopt a universalist worldview of philosophy that requires all philosophy to be accessible and applicable to all peoples and cultures in the world. This is even if the specific philosophical questions prioritized by individual national or regional philosophies may differ. Some African philosophers classified in this category are Odera Oruka, Paulin Hountondji, Peter Bodunrin, Kwasi Wiredu, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Marcien Towa and Lansana Keita.

Nationalist and ideological philosophy

Further information: African nationalism

Nationalist and ideological philosophy might be considered a special case of philosophic sagacity, in which not sages but ideologues are the subjects. Alternatively, it has been considered as a subcategory of professional political philosophy. In either case, the same sort of problem arises with retaining a distinction between ideology and philosophy, and also between sets of ideas and a special way of reasoning. Examples include African socialism, Nkrumaism, Harambee and Authenticité.

African ethics

Although Africa is extremely diverse, there appear to be some shared moral ideas across many ethnic groups. In a number of African cultures, ethics is centered on a person's character, and saying "he has no morals" translates as something like "he has no character". A person's character reflects the accumulation of their deeds and their habits of conduct; hence, it can be changed over a person's life. In some African cultures, "personhood" refers to an adult human who exhibits moral virtues, and one who behaves badly is not considered a person, even if he is considered a human.

While many traditional African societies are highly religious, their religions are not revealed, and hence, ethics does not center around divine commands. Instead, ethics is humanistic and utilitarian: it focuses on improving social functioning and human flourishing. On the other hand, social welfare is not a mere aggregate of individual welfare; rather, there is a collective "social good" embodying values that everyone wants, like peace and stability. In general, African ethics is social or collectivistic rather than individualistic and united in ideology. Cooperation and altruism are considered crucial. African ethics places more weight on duties of prosocial behaviour than on rights per se, in contrast to most of Western ethics.

Africana philosophy

Main article: Africana philosophy

Africana philosophy is the work of philosophers of African descent and others whose work deals with the subject matter of the African diaspora. This is a relatively new (since the 1980s) and developing name given to African thought, and it is given credible attention by professional organizations, including the American Philosophical Association.

Africana philosophy includes the philosophical ideas, arguments and theories of particular concern to people of African descent. Some of the topics explored by Africana philosophy include: pre-Socratic African philosophy and modern day debates discussing the early history of Western philosophy, post-colonial writing in Africa and the Americas, black resistance to oppression, black existentialism in the United States, and the meaning of "blackness" in the modern world.

Africanfuturism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanfuturism

Africanfuturism is a cultural aesthetic and philosophy of science that centers on the fusion of African culture, history, mythology, point of view, with technology based in Africa and not limiting to the diaspora. It was coined by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor in 2019 in a blog post as a single word. Nnedi Okorafor defines Africanfuturism as a sub-category of science fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view..and...does not privilege or center the West," is centered with optimistic "visions in the future," and is written by (and centered on) "people of African descent" while rooted in the African continent. As such its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes the Black diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically has mystical elements. It is different from Afrofuturism, which focuses mainly on the African diaspora, particularly the United States. Works of Africanfuturism include science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror and magic realism.

Writers of Africanfuturism include Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Tade Thompson, Namwali Serpell, Sofia Samatar, Wole Talabi, Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Dandy Jackson Chukwudi.

History

Early beginnings

Works of Africanfuturism have long existed and have been assigned to Afrofuturism. Themes of Africanfuturism can be traced back to Buchi Emecheta's 1983 novel The Rape Of Shavi and Ben Okri's 1991 novel The Famished Road.

21st century

Nnedi Okorafor, author credited for coining the word "Africanfuturism"

In 2019 and 2020, African writers began to reject the term Afrofuturism because of the differences between both genres with Africanfuturism focusing more on African point of view, culture, themes and history as opposed to Afrofuturism which covers African diaspora history, culture and themes. The speculative fiction magazine Omenana and the Nommo Awards presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society launched in 2017 helped to widen the content of the genre.

In August 2020, Hope Wabuke, a writer and assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln of English and Creative Writing, noted that Afrofuturism, coined by Mark Dery, a White critic, in 1993, treats African-American themes and concerns in the "context of twentieth-century technoculture," which was later expanded by Alondra Nelson, arguing that Dery's conception of Blackness began in 1619 and "is marked solely by the ensuing 400 years of violation by whiteness" that he portrayed as "potentially irreparable." Critical of this definition, saying it lacks the qualities of the "Black American diasporic imagination" and ability to conceive of "Blackness outside of the Black American diaspora" or independent from Whiteness, she noted that "Africanfuturism" is different because it is, according to Nnedi Okorafor, more deeply rooted in "African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West," while explaining Africanjujuism as a subcategory of fantasy. Wabuke further explains how Africanfuturism is more specific and rids itself of the "othering of the white gaze and the de facto colonial Western mindset," free from what she calls the "white Western gaze" and saying this is the main difference "between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism." She adds that, in her view, Africanfuturism has a different outlook and perspective than "mainstream Western and American science fiction and fantasy" and even Afrofuturism which is "married to the white Western gaze." Wabuke goes on to explain Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist themes in Okorafor's Who Fears Death and Zahrah the Windseeker, Akwaeke Emezi's Pet, and Buchi Emecheta's The Rape of Shavi.

In February 2021, Aigner Loren Wilson of Tor.com explained the difficulty of finding books in the subgenre because many institutions "treat Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism like the same thing" even though the distinction between them is plain. She said that Africanfuturism is "centered in and about Africa and their people" while Afrofuturism is a sci-fi subcategory which is about "Black people within the diaspora," often including stories of those outside Africa, including in "colonized Western societies.". Another reviewer called Okorafor's Lagoon, which "recounts the story of the arrival of aliens in Nigeria," as an Africanfuturist work which requires a reader who is "actively engaged in co-creating the alternative future that the novel is constructing," meaning that the reader becomes part of the "creative conversation."

Literature and comics

Africanfuturism literature features speculative fiction which narrates events centered on Africa from an African point of view rather than a Western point of view. Works of Africanfuturism literature are still wrongly categorized as Afrofuturism.

Works of Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor are often in the Africanfuturism genre with her works like Who Fears Death, Lagoon, Remote Control, The Book of Phoenix and Noor. She won a Hugo and Nebula award for her novella Binti, the first from the Binti trilogy which features a native Himba girl from Namibia in space. Tade Thompson won a Arthur C. Clarke award for his Africanfuturist novel Rosewater about an alien dome in Nigeria and Zambian writer Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift won the same award.

In 2020, Africanfuturism: An Anthology edited by Wole Talabi was published by Brittle Paper and as of the end of 2022 is currently still offered for free on its website in celebration of the 10th anniversary of this publisher which has been called "the village square of African literature". Gary K. Wolfe reviewed this anthology in February 2021. He credits Nnedi Okorafor for coining "Africanfuturism," noting its describes "more Africa-centered SF," although saying he is not sure whether her term "Africanjujuism," a parallel term for fantasy, will catch on. While saying that both are useful, he says that he does not like how they have to "do with the root, not the prefix," with "futurism" only describing a bit of science fiction and fantasy. He still calls the book a "solid anthology," saying it challenges the idea of viewing African science fiction as monolithic. Stories in the book include "Egoli" by T. L. Huchu, "Yat Madit" by Dilman Dila, "Behind Our Irises" by Tlotlo Tsamaase, "Fort Kwame" by Derek Lubangakene, "Rainmaker" by Mazi Nwonwu, "Fruit of the Calabash" by Rafeeat Aliyu, "Lekki Lekki" by Mame Bougouma Diene, and "Sunrise" by Nnedi Okorafor.

When Tor.com outlined a list of stories and books from the genre as of 2021, Tor also highlighted Africanfuturism: An Anthology (edited by Wole Talabi) along with the individual works of Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift, Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon, Nicky Drayden's The Prey of Gods, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki's Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, and Tochi Onyebuchi's War Girls.

In comics, as of the end of 2022, so far a few Africanfuturism comics exist. Comic Republic Global Network, a Lagos-based publisher, is prominent in creating Africanfuturist superheroes like Guardian Prime. Laguardia, a comic book by Nnedi Okorafor, is associated with Africanfuturism.

Films and animation

Africanfuturism movies are often scarce; films like Black Panther have been criticized by some viewers, who say that their depiction of Africa "differs little from the colonial view". In recent times, Africanfuturist movies include Hello, Rain, Pumzi, and Ratnik. Several Africanfuturism novels have been optioned for live adaptation, including Binti and Who Fears Death. In 2020, Walt Disney Studios and Pan African company Kugali announced that they would be co-producing an africanfuturist animated science fiction series, Iwájú, inspired by the city of Lagos.

In July 5, 2023, Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an Africanfuturist animated anthology short film series premiered on Disney+, Peter Ramsey was picked as executive producer, while Tendayi Nyeke and Anthony Silverston were supervising producers, and Triggerfish was the primary studio, along with other animation studios in Africa. Each of the ten films is from an African perspective, on themes such as social media, duality, disability, self-reflection, shared humanity, and other topics, with stories which include time travel, extraterrestrials, and alternate universes.