TITLE: Leopold Sedar Senghor: Thinker, Statesman, Poet
SPEAKER: Souleymane Bachir Diagne
EVENT DATE: 11/07/2006
RUNNING TIME: 53 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript (link will open in a new window)
DESCRIPTION:
Souleymane Bachir Diagne, professor of philosophy and religion at Northwestern University, gave a lecture titled "Leopold Sedar Senghor: Thinker, Statesman and Poet" in a program sponsored by the African and Middle Eastern Division.
2006 was the centennial year of the birth of Senghor (1906-2001), who served as Senegal's first president from 1960 to 1980. During his presidency, he set Senegal on the path toward a multi-party democracy. Senghor is also regarded as one of the greatest French-language poets of the 20th century. Fatou Fall, a distant relative of Senghor, read one of his poems at the event.
Speaker Biography: Before joining the faculty of Northwestern University, Souleymane Bachir Diagne taught philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal, for more than 20 years. An alumnus of Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, Diagne obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1988. His field of research includes history of algebraic logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy and African philosophy. The author of many publications, Diagne is currently working on a book about Senghor's philosophy.
