Swahili Philosophical Discourse in East African Lifeworlds: Introductory Reflections and Case Studies from Contemporary Poetry

Abstract

This collaborative lecture – between an esteemed Swahili poet and a German anthropologist/philosopher – shall introduce the audience to the ways in which philosophical reflections have long been part of the vivid dynamic lifeworlds on the Swahili coast (and more widely inland, upcountry). With philosophical reflections, we mean deep insights into the meanings and struggles of human existence, social critique, or performances of fundamental (self)questioning. The Swahili language has been used by male and female thinkers and authors to express and question fundamental insights or assumptions about human existence, a good life, and related matters.

The first part of the lecture will introduce the Swahili context, reflect upon ways of approaching the study of philosophical discourse, and summarize some classic (historical and recent) examples that a history of philosophy would need to take into account. The second part of the lecture will zoom in on case studies from poetry. Kai Kresse will provide accounts from his research with/on relevant thinkers and their texts. Abdilatif Abdalla will discuss a few selected poems by the renowned Mombasa poet Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo (1936-2019), and by himself (from Sauti ya Dhiki, 1973, recently translated as The Imaginative Vision of Abdilatif Abdalla’s Voice of Agony, University of Michigan Press, 2024).