Between 2016 and 2024, Dominique Pagani repeatedly returns to a single book by Cheikh Hamidou Kane: L'Aventure ambiguë (The Ambiguous Adventure), a Senegalese novel from 1961 known to African schoolchildren, which places the arrival of the Whites in the land of the Diallobé1. Above all, he quotes its image of the West's first morning in Black Africa, a "morning of childbirth" in which a new world is born in mud and blood. He stresses the universality of this image2 and comes back to it in various contexts, as late as 202434. He also focuses on the speech of the Grande Royale. She detests the foreign school yet urges that the children be sent there, because the power of the new masters does not lie in their cannons: it lies in science, technology and the new school56. He draws on this passage when discussing worldliness in Clouscard, the "cunning of reason" and Niger. As early as 2016, he also notes the knight's remark: the West has halted the outside world that destroys man by raising science as a barricade7.
Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Who is this?
Cheikh Hamidou Kane (born 2 April 1928) is a Senegalese writer best known for his 1961 novel L'Aventure ambiguë (Ambiguous Adventure), about the interactions of western and African cultures. Its hero is a Fulani boy who goes to study in France, where he loses touch with his Islamic faith and his Senegalese roots. The novel was awarded the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1962.
19:30Ambiguous AdventureSenegalese author of a novel published in 1961, known to African schoolchildren, which situates the arrival of the white men in the land of the Diallobé.
24:09Ambiguous AdventureThe morning of the West in black Africa: cannons, then a power that lies in the new school.
32:37Ambiguous AdventureHarangue of the Grande Royale, who hates the foreign school yet pushes for the children to be sent there.
38:26Ambiguous AdventureDialogue between the chevalier and Lacroix: Western science as a barricade against the outside.
1:10:01Ambiguous AdventureEnd of the dialogue: the crucible where the world fuses, the end of singular destinies and the city of the future.
23:37Ambiguous AdventureOpposed to the new masters, the Grande Royale of the Diallobé wants to send the children to the new school, because their strength lies in science and technology.
2:19:02Ambiguous AdventureThe Grande Royale of the Diallobé sends the children to the school of the whites, whose power lies behind the cannons, in knowledge.
Season 11 · 9 Jul 2023Worldliness in Clouscard - The clash of worlds?
