The Essential Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001) was a poet, philosopher, and the first president of Senegal.

Doyle D. Calhoun is University Assistant Professor of Francophone Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Alioune B. Fall is Assistant Professor of Black Studies and French at Providence College.

Cheikh Thiam is Department Chair of English and Professor of Black Studies at Amherst College.

Translators’ Note  vii
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction. “Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001): A Reintroduction” / Doyle D. Calhoun, Alioune B. Fall, and Cheikh Thiam  1
Part 1. Negritude: A Humanism for the Twentieth (and Twenty-First) Century
1. Constitutive Elements of a Civilization of Negro-American Inspiration  27
2. Negritude Is a Humanism of the Twentieth Century  63
3. Negritude and Modernity:, or, Negritude Is a Humanism of the Twentieth Century  75
4. Concerning Negritude  105
5. Negritude, as the Culture of Black Peoples, Shall Not Be Eclipsed  129
6. For a Modern and Negro-African Philosophy  145
7. As Manatees Go to Drink from the Source  175
Part 2. Negritude, Aesthetics, and Philosophy
8. What the Black Man Offers  189
9. The Contributions of Negro Poetry to the First Half of the Century  209
10. Negro-African Aesthetics  225
11. The Function and Meaning of the First World of Negro Arts  241
12. For a Negro Criticism  247
13. From French Poetry to Francophone Poetry; or, The Contributions of Negroes to Francophone Poetry  251
14. Oral Tradition and Modernity  271
Part 3. Negritude, Métissage, and the Dialogue of Cultures
15. The Problem of Culture in French West Africa  281
16. Perspectives on Black Africa; or, To Assimilate, Not Be Assimilated  295
17. Why an Indo-African Department of the University of Dakar?  329
18. Negritude and Mediterranean Civilization  343
19. French and African Languages  355
20. The Dialogue of Cultures  373
Index  387