Aimé Césaire’s Africana Humanism and its Educational Significance

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonial and Indigenous Educational Philosophies

Abstract

This presentation addresses the Afro-Caribbean writer Aimé Césaire’s enactment of what scholars have called Africana humanism. Césaire’s witness to the oppressions of colonialism, and his creative response, render his extraordinary prose poem, "Cahier d’un retour au pay natal" (Journal of a Homecoming), into what scholars regard as one of the great epics of the 20th Century. I will trace Césaire’s development of his core concept negritude, which signifies for him a renewed black consciousness in the face of both injustice and cultural as well as political possibility. I spotlight the educational significance of his work for the field of Africana humanism, and for how education can help people cultivate historical consciousness, moral remembrance (cf. Sankofa), and a spirit of ethical solidarity.

Author

• David T. Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University