Valentin Y. Mudimbe
vmudimbe@duke.edu
Duke University, Durham, USA
Abstract:
From Greek myths, Libya, in its symbolic dimensions, may be one of the less recognized in contemporary imagination. Yet, without narratives on Libya, it would be difficult to induce a number of lessons from which some of the worst predicaments have come to be regulated. For instance, among the descendents of Libya are Cadmos and Europa, Jocasta and Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene. Libya has no autonomous entry in a number of popular dictionaries of mythical and religious analecta. The absence is remarkable. One of the partners of Poseidon, the god of the sea, in the genealogical line of the house of Argos, Libya is a direct descendent of Zeus and Io; and, through Epaphus and Memphis, the grandmother of Aegyptos and Danaos. An eponymic persona, Libya activates multiple figurative lines. The name of the mother of Agenor and Belus serves also geographic designations. In this maneuver it stands as a polysemic symbol in historical and mythical narratives. The interference passed into Latin, and is well attested in classics.
Keywords: transcultural, mythos, truth, Greek philosophy, colonial space, cosmological order.
