Cheikh Anta Diop's transdisciplinary legacy: Impacts on contemporary Africology

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2026

Department/School

African American Studies

Abstract

This book highlights the transdisciplinary legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop’s epistemology, demonstrating its continuing impact on contemporary Africology, which is also known as Black Studies.

Diop’s works in the second half of the 20th century were foundational to the discipline of Africology. Exposing a stain of cultural and racial bias in Eurocentric Egyptology, Diop argued that ancient Egyptian civilization in fact had deep cultural and linguistic connections with African societies south of the Sahara. This book argues that transdisciplinarity was at the heart of Diop’s arguments, as his work drew from history, anthropology, linguistics, sociology, economics, linguistics, osteology, and physics. This book argues that even now, transdisciplinary approaches remain essential to the discipline of Africology, sometimes referred to as Black Studies, Africana Studies, Pan-African Studies, African Global Studies, or African American Studies. In this book, the contributors consider how Diopian transdisciplinary epistemic approaches continue to combat racial bias and restore the global historical and cultural significance of Africa.

Highlighting the significance of Africa’s usable past as outlined by Diop, this book is an important read for researchers across African Studies, Africology, Black Studies, History, World Civilizations, Intercultural Studies, Africa-focused Think Tanks, and policy makers across the African world.

Comments

O. V. Okafor is a faculty member in EMU's Department of Africology and African American Studies.

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