The Philosophy and Genre project explores how African philosophy expresses itself across diverse literary and linguistic forms, seeking to expand what counts as philosophical writing. Rooted in the recognition that philosophical ideas in Africa have always been articulated through poetry, orature, and narrative as well as prose argumentation, the project rethinks the boundaries of philosophy by placing genre at the center of analysis. It asks what happens when the philosophical voice moves through verse, story, performance, or proverb — and how these forms shape meaning, method, and audience.

Working primarily with African-language texts — in Swahili, Lingala, Ciluba, Yoruba, Kikuyu, and others — the project situates African thought within both its local linguistic contexts and global philosophical debates. Rather than translating or domesticating these works into Western frameworks, Philosophy and Genre traces how philosophical reflection emerges through culturally specific forms of expression. By examining orature, moral poetry, narrative traditions, and modern experimental writing, it highlights how African authors and thinkers generate philosophical insights through genres that resist standard academic conventions.

The project develops a methodology for reading genre as philosophy. This means analyzing rhythm, performance, repetition, and metaphor as carriers of argument, not as embellishments. Philosophical meaning is inseparable from the texture of language, the sonic and performative elements of orality, and the historical situation of texts. Through this lens, questions of ethics, personhood, time, and community appear not as abstract categories but as lived, narrated, and sung experiences. The project thus opens a new horizon for comparative philosophy, showing how African genres reconfigure the very idea of reasoning, evidence, and truth.

Situated at the University of Bayreuth, Philosophy and Genre builds on decades of scholarship in African languages and literatures, intercultural philosophy, and decolonial theory. It engages with African thinkers, writers, and traditions that move between the literary and the philosophical — from Swahili moralists and Congolese novelists to contemporary poets and Afropolitan intellectuals. Its approach connects textual analysis with field-based and historical research, bridging the humanities and social sciences to trace how thought travels across linguistic, cultural, and medial borders.

The project’s theoretical contribution lies in demonstrating that African philosophy is not confined to academic treatises or ethnophilosophical generalizations. It is a living practice embedded in genres that negotiate the relation between the local and the universal, between inherited forms and creative transformation. Philosophy and Genre therefore redefines philosophy as an act of composition — a weaving of ideas, languages, and styles — in which form and content are inseparable. It proposes that by attending to genre, scholars can uncover a broader and more inclusive understanding of what it means to think philosophically in the global age.