Jean Godefroy Bidima
4:30 pm | Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road
In this presentation Jean Godefroy Bidima, Professor Yvonne Arnoult Chairholder of French Studies at Tulane University, will explore Jean-Pierre Proudhon (1809-1865). Proudhon was a French philosopher, publisher, and politician, sometimes considered the "father of anarchism," in both its cooperatives and individualist forms, although he also served in the National Assembly. The author of "What is Property?" Proudhon has also gone in history as the target of Marx's polemic, The Poverty of Philosophy. It is only possible to approach Proudhon's thought if we bear in mind both the paradox that criss-crosses the depths of his writings and the systematic nature of his political economy, which is immediately contradicted by the fragmentary aspect and loose style of his notebooks. Not only was Proudhon at odds with himself. His conception of the revolution oscillated between the model oof 1789, whose spirit he praised while criticizing its methods, the model of 1830, whose supporters he came to recognize as pathetic, and finally the model in the Revolution of 1848, in which he participated while both praising and vilifying Louis Bonaparte. Jean Godefroy Bidima is a 2025 Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.
Registration requested. Register HERE.
About the Speaker:
Jean Godefroy Bidima is a Cameroonian Philosopher, currently residing in the United States. His fields of interest are cited as "Continental philosophy, literatures and arts of the Francophone world, African philosophy, juridicial anthropology, and medical ethics." Before teaching at Tulane, Bidima was the Visiting Associate Professor at Bayreuth University in Germany, and the Program Director at the International College of Philosophy.
Read about Jean Godefroy Bidima's impact in and outside the classroom in this article written at Tulane University.