 ISSN 1011-226 |
Quest |
An African Journal of Philosophy |
|
Revue Africaine de Philosophie |
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EDITORIAL (2012): THE RESUSCITATION OF QUEST
Since early 2009, when
the last three annual volumes (XX, XXI. XXII. 2006, 2007, 2008) of
Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy / Revue Africaine de Philosophie
were published, our journal has gone through a bumpy patch. The same year saw
the end of the five-year hospitality agreement between this journal and the
African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands. The Editor had negotiated this
agreement in 2004 (as the only successful outcome of a long series of
international applications for subsidy), and though it had failed to bring the
secretarial and administrative assistance so badly needed, it had at least paid
for printing and postage. We thank the African Studies Centre for its loyal
support over these five years. Against the background of the international
financial crisis from 2008 onward, revenue from subscriptions, sale of back
issues, and reprint fees dwindled, and costs of printing, web design, hosting
and postage were mounting. Meanwhile Quest was enjoying ever greater
popularity on the part of established and junior contributors, and also the
quality of the articles submitted went from strength to strength. Under those
circumstances the Editorial Board saw no alternative but to sit back and wait
until the financial situation would clear up sufficiently to produce, dispatch
and host new annual volumes. In 2011-2012 the felicitous reprint of three
Quest articles in the Eboussi Boulaga Festschrift, and the fees secured in
that connection through the good services of Professor Valentin Mudimbe (Member
of the Advisory Editorial Board) seemed to bode better times for our journal;
but then the Editor went down with serious illness for two periods of half a
year each. By the end of 2012, these medical hurdles had finally been taken, and
three new annual volumes are now lined up for imminent publication, before the
middle of 2013 – one under the guest editorship of Professor Thaddeus Metz from
South Africa. A cheaper production process yet more attractive format were
meanwhile initiated, of which the present double annual volume XXIII / XXIV
is the first implementation. For rather than already bringing
out these three volumes, we decided that we should first devote the present
combined annual volume XXIII-XXIV (2009-2010) to a long-standing book project of
the Editor, in honour of his 65th birthday, and in recognition of his
contributions to Quest and to the sake of African philosophy over the
past decade. The book’s anti-hegemonic, anti-Eurocentric approach to long-range
transcontinental philosophy from an African perspective is a fitting expression
of the spirit of Quest, and a significant contribution to the global
history of philosophy.
While the digital version of Vols XXIII-XXIV is already made available at the
Quest website, the printed version is currtently with the printer's and will
be dispatched to subscribers by mid-April 2013.