Students of the World: Global 1968 and Decolonization in the Congo

by Pedro Monaville

Overview

On June 30, 1960—the day of the Congo’s independence—Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a fiery speech in which he conjured a definitive shift away from a past of colonial oppression toward a future of sovereignty, dignity, and justice. His assassination a few months later showed how much neocolonial forces and the Cold War jeopardized African movements for liberation. In Students of the World, Pedro Monaville traces a generation of Congolese student activists who refused to accept the foreclosure of the future Lumumba envisioned. These students sought to decolonize university campuses, but the projects of emancipation they articulated went well beyond transforming higher education. Monaville explores the modes of being and thinking that shaped their politics. He outlines a trajectory of radicalization in which gender constructions, cosmopolitan dispositions, and the influence of a dissident popular culture mattered as much as access to various networks of activism and revolutionary thinking. By illuminating the many worlds inhabited by Congolese students at the time of decolonization, Monaville charts new ways of writing histories of the global 1960s from Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478018377
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	07/22/2022
Series:	Theory in Forms
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Pedro Monaville is Assistant Professor of History at New York UniversityAbu Dhabi.

Table of Contents

Preface. Memory Work in the Age of Cinq Chantiers  ix
Note on Toponyms  xvii
Acknowledgments  xix
Introduction. The School of the World  1
Interlude I. Postal Musings  20
1. Distance Learning and the Production of Politics  23
2. Friendly Correspondence with the Whole World  42
Interlude II. To Live Forever Among Books  63
3. Paths to School  65
4. Dancing the Rumba at Lovanium  84
Interlude III. To the Left  103
5. Cold War Transcripts  109
6. Revolution in the (Counter)revolution  129
7. A Student Front  144
Interlude IV. The Dictator and the Students  161
8. (Un)natural Alliances  166
9. A Postcolonial Massacre and Caporalisation in Mobutu's Congo  179
Epilogue. The Gaze of the Dead  201
Notes  213
Bibliography  287
Index  323

What People are Saying About This

Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds - Filip De Boeck

“Creatively reworking the notion of ‘worlding’ against the backdrop of the Cold War and resonating in unexpected ways with contemporary debates on decolonization, this is one of the most incisive histories ever written about African students’ political engagements during the turbulent but pivotal decade following upon Congo’s independence.”

Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination - Adom Getachew

“In this exemplary exploration of decolonization and student politics, Pedro Monaville gives us a distinctive look at what was lost in the tragedy of decolonization’s failures. We are accustomed to lamenting the violence, repression, and authoritarianism of the 1960s and 1970s. Monaville helps us to see that along with the many lives lost and destroyed, a form of political imagination and a way of being in and of the world was also shattered. Students of the World is an elegiac meditation on this loss, faithfully reconstructing the fragments of the students’ vision and helping us to properly mourn its collapse.”

Editorial Reviews

"The beauty of this book lies in both its content and form. . . . . Monaville's book exemplifies an approach that integrates 'theory and form', thereby offering a valuable contribution to the historiography of student activism, decolonization, the Cold War, and the Global Sixties."--Emery Kalema "Journal of African History" (4/14/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"This study is a significant, well-written contribution to the history of youth movements in the late 20th century. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals."--J. M. Rich "Choice" (10/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"With his well-researched and meticulously wrought study, Monaville has conjured up a bygone world of possibilities that clashed with the realities of Africa's postcolonial hubris, a world that ended up crushed in the vortex of global politics. Students of the World possesses all the trappings of the kind of seminal works that pave the way for a historiographical renewal."--Didier Gondola "The Global Sixties" (10/15/2022 12:00:00 AM)

"Students of the World is richly referenced in the endnotes and stands as an example of the creative possibilities of scholarly monographs. Students of the World will prove an enduring reference point for global histories of Cold War-era activism."--Ismay Milford "H-Soz-Kult" (3/4/2022 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

"With his well-researched and meticulously wrought study, Monaville has conjured up a bygone world of possibilities that clashed with the realities of Africa’s postcolonial hubris, a world that ended up crushed in the vortex of global politics. Students of the World possesses all the trappings of the kind of seminal works that pave the way for a historiographical renewal."

The Global Sixties - Didier Gondola

"Students of the World is richly referenced in the endnotes and stands as an example of the creative possibilities of scholarly monographs. Students of the World will prove an enduring reference point for global histories of Cold War-era activism."

H-Soz-Kult - Ismay Milford

"Pedro Monaville has written an eloquent, well-documented, and persuasive social, political, and intellectual history of how Congolese university students decolonized higher education and navigated authoritarianism during the 1950s and 1960s."

International Journal of African Historical Studies - Joshua Castillo

"This study is a significant, well-written contribution to the history of youth movements in the late 20th century. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals."

Choice - J. M. Rich

"[Students of the World] is a rigorous piece of scholarship, but it is not only Monaville's academic rigor that makes him a worthy steward of such a rich mosaic of Congolese letters and interview. It is equally his commitment to the care so obviously at the center of his intellectual labor in presenting an alternative history to the present that contributes to the ongoing detangling and generative effort of decolonization."

African Studies Quarterly - Madden Gilhooly

"Pedro Monaville has produced an exceedingly well-written study of Congolese student politics. The book brilliantly examines contests between students, colonial officials, nationalist politicians, university rectors, Catholic priests, and foreign agents jockeying for influence in what for nearly a decade was a key fulcrum of the Cold War. The author does an excellent job of reconstructing the often-fraught relations between Congolese students and powerful figures such as Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu."

G. Thomas Burgessth and Comparative Politics

"... Students of the World is a significant contribution to student activism in the 1960s that deserves a wide audience as much for its methodology as for its moving elegy for a lost generation of Congolese intellectuals."

Journal of Global South Studies - Jason Tatlock

"The beauty of this book lies in both its content and form. . . . . Monaville’s book exemplifies an approach that integrates ‘theory and form’, thereby offering a valuable contribution to the historiography of student activism, decolonization, the Cold War, and the Global Sixties."

Journal of African History - Emery Kalema

"Students of the World leaves its reader with a distinct sense of the many imagined alternatives to independent Congo's future that were fore closed on by Mobutu's ascension. These are stories often left out of Congolese history. This book fills in this scholarly chasm with an engaging, fluid narrative."

Africa Today - Emily Hardick

"There is no denying that Students of the World is a highly original and beautifully crafted book. Its portrayal of a lost political generation that was once a significant force in post-independence Congo attests to the sophistication and diversity of contemporary Congolese historiography. Congo and decolonisation specialists will ignore it at their peril."

BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review - Giacomo Macola