Last PhD supervision by Honorary Fellow Prof. Wim van Binsbergen

On 16 February, associated senior researcher Prof. Wim van Binsbergen completed his last PhD supervision as promotor of Pius Mosima. Wim van Binsbergen is an Honorary Fellow of the African Studies Centre Leiden Community. Although retired in 2012, he is still doing research. 

Wim van Binsbergen is Emeritus Professor of the Foundations of Intercultural Philosophy, Philosophical Faculty, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His last PhD candidate, Pius Mosima, successfully defended his PhD thesis Philosophic Sagacity and Intercultural Philosophy; Beyond Henry Odura Oruka on 16 February at Tilburg University. Wouter van Beek, also senior researcher at the ASCL, was his other supervisor. In his PhD thesis, Mosima seeks to contribute to the future of African and intercultural philosophy by comparing the late Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka’s  philosophic sagacity with intercultural philosophy as conceived by Wim van Binsbergen. Pius Mosima teaches Philosophy at the University of Bamenda, Cameroon, and is Vice Country Director in charge of Research and Programs at the Benchmark Institute for Research and Development, Yaoundé, Cameroon.


  • Mosima and Van Binsbergen during final supervision,
    in a fishing village at the Cameroonian-Nigerian border,
    April 2015 (website Wim van Binsbergen)
Wim van Binsbergen and Pius Mosima were also the main speakers at a Symposium on 17 February organised by the Centre for Mission Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, on the Franciscan father, the missionary Frans (clerical name Placied) Tempels (1906 - 1977), whose seminal book Bantoe-filosofie / Bantu Philosophy / La philosophie bantoue, appeared in Brussels 70 years ago. 

An anthropologist, Van Binsbergen’s research interests include: religion in Africa; intercultural philosophy, especially epistemology; African and Ancient Mediterranean history; Afrocentricity; ethnicity, ancient and modern statehood; globalisation, commodification, virtuality and mediatisation. He has done extensive fieldwork in Tunisia, Zambia, Guinea Bissau and Botswana, besides historical projects on South Central Africa, the Ancient Near East, the world history of geomantic divination and shamanism, the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Mediterranean (ethnicity and artisanal cults; the Presocratics and their world-wide antecedents). In the last few years he has travelled extensively in South, South East and South Asia in order to document Asian-African continuities, leading to a 2012 International Conference at the African Studies Centre Leiden.

Van Binsbergen is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books. For an overview of all his activities and publications, visit his personal website.

Posted on 22 February 2016, last modified on 30 September 2021