N. Andre Siamundele
Lincoln University
Andre Siamundele has experience teaching French language courses, college and honors seminars on African Cinema, Postcolonial studies, and Francophone literature and culture. He has published several articles on the question of Identity in Africa and the Diaspora. He also has extensive experience in the area of Study abroad.
He teaches Francophone Studies and International and Global Studies courses. He holds a PhD in French and Francophone studies from Yale University. He has served as co-chair of World Languages Academic Transformation Team at University of Maine in Farmington.
He is now a faculty member at Lincoln University. His research focuses on Afro-francophone Post-colonial Images with an interdisciplinary approach that includes areas such as culture, language, literature, history, and politics.
Talk Information:
Ecart or the Existential Gap
August 9, 2025 | 9:00 AM
The literary works and life of V. Y. Mudimbe exemplify the concept of écart. This polar giant of the African literary world is a key for reading and understanding both African literature and discourse. His literary style and lifestyle and the universe that he describes serve as a microcosm of the present-day African world. His works reveal and embellish perceptions and notions (both real and imagined) about post-colonial Central Africa. Mudimbe understands the difficulty in being both African and a Western intellectual. His literary style and content mirror his own existence and the state of central Africa itself, which he describes as an --écart. or existential gap. This identity crisis, the inability (or, unwillingness) to accept a singular identity is a dominant motif in Mudimbe's literature, life and in central Africa.