In 1966 Cheikh Anta Diop and W.E.B. Du Bois were jointly awarded the prestigious African World Festival of Arts and Culture prize for scholars who had “exerted the greatest influence on African peoples in the 20th century”. Diop’s scholarship benefited immensely from his impressive multidisciplinary training in France between 1946 and 1960. He was a physicist, mathematician, philosopher, historian, linguist, anthropologist and Egyptologist. Whilst the defining focus of Diop’s scholarship is undoubtedly Kemet - from

Kmt

, the name the “Ancient Egyptians” used of themselves - his near-40 years of research work and publications, which culminated in

Civilisation ou barbarie

, 1981 [

Civilization or Barbarism

, 1991], radically challenged the “orthodoxies” on practically every…

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Citation: Ekwe Ekwe, Herbert. "Cheikh Anta Diop". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 May 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5908, accessed 28 March 2024.]

5908 Cheikh Anta Diop 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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