Research interests
History of Philosophy, Islamic Philosophy, African Philosophy and Literature
Souleymane Bachir Diagne received his academic training in France. As an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure, he has an agrégation in philosophy (1978) and earned his doctorate in philosophy at the Sorbonne (1988), where he also did his BA (1977). Before joining Columbia University in 2008, he taught philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar (Senegal) and at Northwestern University for many years. His research area includes the history of logic, the 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 Scholars' Ink: 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 . The decisive impulse in the thinking of Senghor and Mohamed Iqbal , (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 2011) will be published in an English version by Fordham University Press. This book was awarded the Dagnan Bouveret Prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in 2011, and in the same year Professor Diagne received the Edouard Glissant Prize for his work. Souleymane Bachir Diagne's current teaching interests include the history of early modern philosophy, philosophy and Sufism in the Islamic world, African philosophy and literature, and 20th century French philosophy.
Selected publications
