kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2022 8:29 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CALL FOR HIGH QUALITY BOOK CHAPTERS
--Call for Book Chapters
Book Title: Emerging Trends and Questions in African Philosophy of Religion
Editors: Ada Agada, Aribiah D. Attoe and Jonathan O. Chimakonam
Potential publisher: Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Indiana University Press
The publication of African Religions in Western Scholarship by Okot p'Bitek in 1971 and similar works (see Arinze 1970; Zahan 1970; Ilogu 1973, 1974; Kalu 1978; Ikenga-Metuh 1979, 1981, 1987; Anizoba 1986; Onunwa 1991, 2011) laid the foundation for the emergence of African philosophy of religion as a distinct field of African philosophy unencumbered by the worldview narratives of African Traditional Religion (ATR) and the assumptions of the prevailing religious scholarship of early ATR scholars like Evans-Pritchard (1940), Danquah (1944), Idowu (1962), Parrinder (1963), Mbiti (1969), and Awolalu (1979). P'Bitek and others pursued a decolonisation perspective that radicalised an indigenising dimension in African humanities that defenders of traditional theism had embraced in their reaction to Western claims about the primitivity of ATR and related cultural phenomena.
However, after these efforts, the field quickly slowed; but a flurry of research activities in the last two years sparked by the Global Philosophy of Religion project funded by the John Templeton Foundation has lifted the field of African philosophy of religion from the doldrums in which it has languished in the past few decades. This book volume is aimed at sustaining the gains and contributing to the reestablishment of the field of African philosophy of religion.
While defenders of traditional theism insist that Africans traditionally conceive God as possessing the omni-properties (omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipresence), p'Bitek and other decolonisation scholars accuse the traditional theists of importing Western conceptual schemes into African religious studies in an effort to combat erroneous Western assumptions about African religious and cultural phenomena. In one form or the other, the radical decolonisation scholars hold the view that the African God is a limited entity that certainly lacks the omniproperties (Onunwa 1991, 2011; Sogolo 1993; Bewaji 1998; Wiredu 1998; Oladipo 2004; Balogun 2009; Fayemi 2012; Cordeiro-Rodrigues 2019; Dasaolu 2019; Chimakonam and Chimakonam 2022; cf. Gyekye 1995; Oduwole 2007; Boaheng 2012; Igboin 2014; Metz and Molefe 2021). Philosophers like Gyekye (1995), Metz and Molefe (2021) have recently articulated positions that more or less endorse African traditional theism, prompting Agada (2022) to raise the question whether there is a cultural antinomy in the traditional African conception of God that can revolutionise African philosophy of religion and rejig its fundamental questions. Recent intriguing rethinking of the idea of God in panpsychist, vitalistic, panentheistic, processual, and seemingly atheistic/materialistic terms (Molefe 2018; Cordeiro-Rodrigues 2021; Agada 2022; Ofuasia 2022; Attoe 2022), and the novel conception of God as the complementaristic 'harmony-God', grounded in the Ezumezu trivalent logic put forward by Chimakonam and Chimakonam (2022), make an irresistible case for the publication of a groundbreaking, field-defining edited volume.
A similar question on the problem of evil has also elicited curious ideas in recent scholarship in
African philosophy of religion. Thinkers like A.E. Chimakonam (2022), A.D. Attoe (2022) and Chimakonam and Chimakonam (2022) have attempted a negative resolution of the problem, with at least two of the attempts grounded in a trivalent logic. These issues demand engagement and further probing, as do other issues in the field. This task will be the focus of the present volume. No major edited volume solely dedicated to the fundamental questions shaping the field of African philosophy of religion currently exists.
The proposed edited volume rises to this challenge. The Editors invite African philosophers and religious studies scholars to be part of this ambitious project by submitting high-quality chapters. All contributions must be transparently philosophical, or at least argumentative. Unfortunately, chapters focused largely on ATR, as well as African sociology and anthropology, are not acceptable. Chapters preoccupied with questions arising within Western philosophy of religion are also unacceptable, although contributors are free to engage in cross-cultural philosophical exercises between African philosophy of religion and Western and Asian philosophies of religion. The overarching goal of the volume is to decisively relaunch African philosophy of religion as a self-sustaining field of African philosophy. However, chapters that critically evaluate the status of ATR and its relation to African philosophy fit into the current project. Potential contributors are also encouraged to submit chapters that engage insightfully with existing works in the field, especially those published in the last two years. Chapter titles and full chapters should reflect the following trends and questions in the field:
• African theistic conceptions of God
• The African limited God perspective
• The harmony-God conception
• African theism and the problem of moral and physical evil
• Ezumezu trivalent logic and the problem of evil
• The negative resolution of the problem of evil
• The limited God view and evil in the world
• Re-incarnation, afterlife, ancestorhood
• Conversational philosophy and religious experiences
• Complementary reflection and the African philosophy of religion
• Spiritual objects, omens, values and powers
• Predeterministic historicity and God's conception
• Freedom, destiny and determinism in African philosophy of religion
• Vitalistic conceptions of God
• Sources of African philosophy of religion and the status of ATR
• Decolonising African philosophy of religion
• Arguments for the existence of the African God
• The rationality of belief in the African God
• Kwasi Wiredu's contribution to African philosophy of religion
• Okot p'Bitek's challenge to African philosophy of religion
• Agnosticism and atheism in contemporary African thought
• God and consolation in an African context
• Death and immortality in African thought
• The phenomenon of religious nones in Africa
• Creation, evolution, and African worldviews
• The meaning of life
• Universe, world, time, and eternity in African thought
Chapter titles, abstracts, and completed chapters should be sent to adaagada@gmail.com, cc:
Anticipated Milestones
25 October 2022 – Submission of chapter titles and abstracts (200-300 words).
30 November 2022 – Decision on acceptance
15 December 2022 – Submission of Book Proposal to the publisher
25 April 2023 – Submission of completed quality book chapters (5000-8000 words) by contributors
30 July 2023 – Completion of internal peer review and correction processes
30 September 2023 Completion of publisher peer review and correction processes
5 October 2023 – Submission of successful chapters to the publisher First quarter of 2024 – Publication of a field-defining volume.
Be part of our African intellectual history. Be part of the re-emergence of African philosophy of religion!
About the Editors
Dr Ada Agada
Dr Ada Agada is a Nigerian philosopher with a growing international reputation. Best known as the major proponent of consolationism, Agada is the author of the original work Existence and Consolation: Reinventing Ontology, Gnosis, and Values in African Philosophy (St Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2015), a winner of the prestigious Outstanding Academic Title award from
CHOICE, the magazine of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the largest division of the American Library Association (ALA). He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH), the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), the Global Philosophy of Religion Project (GPRP) hosted by the University of Birmingham, and the prestigious Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), among others. His recent monograph Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy: Beyond Universalism and Particularism (London and New York: Routledge, 2022) has been well-received as a landmark contribution to African ideas. He specialises in African philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and intercultural philosophy. He is with the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa (CLEA), University of Fort Hare, South Africa. He is a major voice of the Conversational School of Philosophy, Calabar, Nigeria. Dr Agada writes and reads poems and novels when not busy with philosophical research.
Dr Aribiah David Attoe
Dr Aribiah David Attoe is currently a Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, and is currently a co-recipient of the Global Philosophy of Religion Project grant from the John Templeton Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, and hosted by the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa. He was formerly a postdoc at the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare, and earned his PhD in African Philosophy, at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has (co)authored several articles and books, some of which include: Groundwork for a New Kind of African Metaphysics: The Idea of Predeterministic Historicity (Palgrave, 2022). New Conversations on the Problems of Identity, Consciousness and Mind (Springer, 2019), "The Passionate Yearning Theory as a Theory of
Meaning in Life," Philosophia (2022), "A Systematic Account of African Conceptions of the
Meaning of/in Life," South African Journal of Philosophy (2020) and "An Essay Concerning the Foundational Myth of Ethnophilosophy," Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions (2016). He also guest-edited the first ever book-length literature/special issue on "African Conceptions of the Meaning of Life", published by the South African Journal of Philosophy. He is a member of the prestigious Conversational School of Philosophy. His major research areas of interest span across African metaphysics, ethics and African conceptions of meaning, and he has given various talks on areas related to his research areas at different international forums and conferences.
Prof. Jonathan O. Chimakonam
Prof. Jonathan O. Chimakonam teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a senior research fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Philosophy, Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen, Germany. He taught at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, for several years, and is a second-generation member of the prestigious Calabar School. He was a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg (20172019). His teaching and research interests cover the areas of African philosophy, Logic, Intercultural philosophy, Environmental ethics, Philosophy of religion and Postmodern/decolonial thought. He is a major proponent of the conversational approach to philosophy. He articulated and defined the system of conversational thinking, its method, philosophy and a system of logic called
Ezumezu that grounds it. He is African philosophy Area Editor of the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy and the editor of Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions. Chimakonam has mentored, and continues to mentor, many young African academics. He is a co-author of the new book African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy (Palgrave 2021). He is the Principal Investigator in the University of Pretoria RDP and UCDP funded research projects titled "Decoloniality through Conversational Thinking". He is a co-investigator in the Global Philosophy of Religion Project funded by the John Templeton Foundation; a principal investigator in the National Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences (NIHSS) grant; an investigator in the National Research
Foundation (NRF) of South Africa's Incentive Funding; and a co-investigator in the Center for Greater China Studies, Hang Seng University, Hong Kong grant. Chimakonam is a logician and a social thinker, and has published many articles, chapters and books. His theories and thoughts have been the themes of some international colloquia and roundtables. Reviews, rejoinders and theses have been written on his work. He is the president of the Conversational Society of Philosophy (CSP), and a major voice in the conversational approach to philosophy. Chimakonam is a winner of Jens Jacobsen Research Award for Outstanding Research in Philosophy for 2016. Recently, he was a recipient of the University of Pretoria's Exceptional Young Researchers Award for 2021, the NRF award for 2021, and the University of Pretoria's Vice-chancellor's book award for 2022.
--
Jonathan O Chimakonam
Department of Philosophy
University of Pretoria
My latest book: Logic and African Philosophy: Seminal Essays on African Systems of Thought (Vernon Press, 2020)
Available at 24% discount (using code CFC171611B2 on checkout): https://vernonpress.com/book/944
or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Logic-African-Philosophy-Seminal-Systems/dp/1622738829/
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