media releases - Inaugural event of the African innovation fellowship cycle

Prof Mandla Makhanya, Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of South Africa, cordially invites you to the inaugural event of the African innovation fellowship cycle.

Speaker: Prof Paulin J. Hountondji

Topic: What does innovation mean in and for Africa?

Speaker: Prof Paulin J. Hountondji, Professor Emeritus, National University of Benin; President of the National Council on Education, Benin

Date: Tuesday 23 March 2010

Time: 15:30 for 16:00

Venue: Senate Hall, 2nd Floor, Theo Van Wijk Building, Preller Street, Muckleneuk Ridge, Unisa

RSVP: Warren Makgowe (before 18 March 2010)

Tel no: 012 352 4130; Fax no: 0866 745139 or 012 352 4112

E-mail: makgogw@unisa.ac.za

LECTURE BACKGROUND

Professor Paulin J. Hountondji will inaugurate the African Innovation fellowship cycle with a philosophical investigation into the notion of African innovation. Building on his recent tenure at the W.E.B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research where he held the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellowship for a project entitled Constructing the Universal: a trans-cultural Challenge, Professor Hountondji will focus on what innovation means for and in Africa.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: PROF PAULIN J. HOUNTONDJI

A citizen of Benin, Paulin J. Hountondji was born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. He is Professor of philosophy at the University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, one of the two national universities of the country and Director of the African Center for Advanced Studies in Porto-Novo (Benin).

His publications include:

African Philosophy, Myth and Reality, 2nd edition, Indiana University Press, 1997; transl. Henri Evans with the collaboration. of Jonathan Rée, Introduction by Abiola Irele; Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails (ed.), Dakar, Codesria 1997; transl. Ayi Kwei Armah; The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa, Ohio University Press, 2002; transl. John Conteh-Morgan; La rationalité, une ou plurielle? (ed.), Dakar, Codesria, 2007; L’ancien et le nouveau: la production du savoir dans l’Afrique d’aujourd’hui, Porto-Novo: Centre africain des hautes études, 2009, and other books and articles mainly in French. Paulin J. HOUNTONDJI was Minister of Education, then Minister for Culture and Communication in Benin from 1990 to 1993. He was Vice-President of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (CIPSH) from 1998 to 2002, and Vice-President of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) from 2002 – 2005. He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies. He was appointed end March 2009 as President of the National Council for Education in Benin.