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SUMMARY:Edouard Glissant’s Tout-monde: Beyond Universalism and Towards Relationality
DESCRIPTION:Writer, filmmaker, and scholar Manthia Diawara considers the thought of Édouard Glissant through his film Édouard Glissant: One World in Relation (2010). Exploring the poet and philosopher’s concept of Tout-monde, the seminar examines how cultures, histories, and identities take shape through encounters and exchange.
 
Glissant’s vision of relation asks how we might change through contact with others without losing ourselves. Moving across nationalism, religion, and the arts, his work challenges fixed oppositions and invites us to attend to the connections that exist alongside differences.
 
Through poetic concepts such as the “Creole Garden,” “Chaos Opera,” and mangrove poetics, Diawara explores a planetary consciousness in which roots intertwine, mix, and support one another. These ideas question universalism and linear ways of ordering the world, allowing complexity, contradiction, and difference to remain visible.
 
The seminar takes place on Thursday, October 1, 2026, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm, with a discussion moderated by historian Mamadou Diouf.
 
Organized by The Africa Institute at Global Studies University, this is the second session of the Fall 2026 series “From Area Studies to Global Studies.”
Speaker
Manthia Diawara is a writer, filmmaker, and Distinguished University Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies at New York University. Born in Mali and educated in France and the United States, his work spans African and African diaspora cinema, literature, art, and politics.
 
His books include In Search of Africa (1998) and We Won’t Budge: An African Exile in the World (2003). His films include Édouard Glissant: One World in Relation (2010), Négritude: A Dialogue between Soyinka and Senghor (2016), and An Opera of the World (2017). He serves on Global Studies University’s Board of Trustees. Read more. 
Moderator
Mamadou Diouf is Professor of African History at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University. Previously, he was the Leitner Family Professor of African Studies at Columbia University, where he directed the Institute for African Studies and chaired the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
 
His earlier appointments include Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal, CODESRIA, and the University of Michigan. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris I-Sorbonne. Read more.
 
About the Seminar Series
From Area Studies to Global Studies forms part of the one-credit Ph.D. in Global Studies course GSSH 704: Seminar: From Area Studies to Global Studies II. Held over two semesters, the course introduces students to major debates in Area Studies from critical and global perspectives through monthly presentations by invited scholars, required readings, and assignments. While the seminar is a required component of the Ph.D. curriculum, its public sessions are open to the wider GSU community and the public.
 
The series is organized by Salah M. Hassan, Professor of African Art History and Visual Studies, and Binyam Sisay Mendisu, Professor of African Languages and Linguistics, as part of the Ph.D. in Global Studies. Four seminars will be held during the Fall 2026 semester, bringing together scholars whose work examines Africa, Asia, their diasporas, and key debates in Global Studies.
LOCATION:GSU Auditorium
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