V. Y. Mudimbe

Mudimbe's work is considered as highly influential for African studies, notably for his major book The Invention of Africa (1988). His writings transformed the intellectual history of Africa by challenging the dominant historic reconstruction of Greek philosophy which according to him was racialised. The influence of Mudimbe's writings for African studies was compared to that of Edward Said's book Orientalism for postcolonial studies. Mudimbe showed that without critiquing the epistemologies which were the basis of the discourses about Africa critical approaches can become fruitless. He received the Herskovits Award given by African Studies Association in 1989.

He was born in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a young man, he joined a monastery, but left in 1962 in order to study the forces that shaped African history. He studied in Louvain (PhD, 1970), came back to Congo and flew to the United States in 1979 for political reasons. He has taught at Haverford College and Stanford University, and is now Professor Emeritus in the Program in Literature at Duke University. His work has had a major impact on many disciplines including African studies, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Linguistics, Literature, and History.

Valentin-Yves Mudimbe (born 8 December 1941, Jadotville, Belgian Congo) is a Congolese philosopher, professor, and author of poems, novels, as well as books and articles on African culture and intellectual history. Mudimbe is Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of Romance Studies and professor of comparative literature at Duke University and maître de conferences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.