Jean Godefroy Bidima
4:30 pm | Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road
Maryse Condé (1934-2024) was a major francophone novelist and playwright from Guadeloupe whose literary works, including the epic Ségu and I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, strove to create an imaginary as well as historical framework for African diasporic readers around the world. In this presentation Jean Godefroy Bidima, Professor Yvonne Arnoult Chairholder of French Studies at Tulane University, will explore the germination of Condé's oeuvre. How do Maryse Condé's life and work bring forth words of life, those uninterrupted words that address our human condition regardless of race, gender or nationality? In following this itinerary, Bidima will first set aside the various reductions Condé's work often faces, which trap its germination from the start. Next, he'll analyze some of Maryse Condé's crossings with her knots and masks. Finally, he will put into perspective the relationship between the life of the word and Condé's paroles vie.
Jean Godefroy Bidima is a 2025 Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.
Registration is requested. Register
About the Speaker:
Jean Godefroy Bidima is a Cameroonian Philosopher, currently residing in the United States. His fields of interest are cited as "Continental philosophy, literatures and arts of the Francophone world, African philosophy, juridicial anthropology, and medical ethics." Before teaching at Tulane, Bidima was the Visiting Associate Professor at Bayreuth University in Germany, and the Program Director at the International College of Philosophy.
Read about Jean Godefroy Bidima's impact in and outside the classroom in this written at Tulane University.