The Sufi and the State: Discussing the notion of a state being ‘Islamic’
Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne
February 9, 2016 · 11:45AM-1PM
Fayerweather Hall Room 411
The next CGT Lunchtime Seminar of the spring semester will feature Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor of French and Philosophy and Committee on Global Thought member. He will discuss the ideological formation of the state in various traditions of Islam and indicate what factors have contributed to the range of ways in which Islamic traditions govern, are governed, and ideologically participate in integrating the identities of the faithful as Muslims and as citizens.
The CGT Lunchtime Seminars are an open forum for Columbia faculty and visiting scholars to discuss current research with MA students and other graduate students and faculty. This stimulating discussion is open to Columbia affiliates. No registration is required.
About the speaker
Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a Professor of French, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University.
Professor 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.
Professor Diagne’s field of research includes history of logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy, African philosophy and literature. His book Bergson postcolonial. L’élan vital dans la pensée de Senghor et de Mohamed Iqbal (Paris, Editions du CNRS, 2011) was awarded the Dagnan-Bouveret prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for 2011 and on that same year he 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.
Professor Diagne is co-director of Éthiopiques, a Senegalese journal of literature and philosophy and a member of the editorial committees of numerous scholarly journals, including the Revue d’histoire des mathématiques, Présence africaine, and Public Culture. He is a member of the scientific committees of Diogenes (published by UNESCO’s International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies), CODESRIA (Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique), and of the African and Malagasy Committee for Higher Education (CAMES), as well as UNESCO’s Council on the Future. He has been named by Le Nouvel observateur one of the 50 thinkers of our time.
