1st Edition
Existentia Africana Understanding Africana Existential Thought
The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack.
Biography
Lewis R. Gordon is Professor of Afro-American Studies, Modern Culture and Media, and Contemporary Religious Thought at Brown University. He is author of Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (1995) and editor of Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Philosophy (1996), both published by Routledge.
"Strongly recommended for all library collections..." -- Choice
"'What does it mean to be a problem?' In the innovative essays of Existentia Africana, Lewis Gordon returns to the exploration both of W.E.B. Dubois' question, as well as of the emancipatory tradition of Black existential thought...It is an immense and profoundly original undertaking." -- Sylvia Wynter, author of Do Not Call Us Negroes: How Multicultural Textbooks Perpetuate Racism and Professor Emerita, Stanford University
"In Existentia Africana, Lewis Gordon is once again at his philosophical best. Continuing from where he left off in Existence in Black, Gordon develops Africana philosophy and critical race theory to a higher level of sophistication and originality that will certainly make him a forceful voice of the next millennium. Indeed, a much needed and truly liberating contribution." -- Mabogo P. More, University of Durban-Westville, South Africa
"Gordon once again brings his mastery of existentialist writers such as Frantz Fanon and Sartre to bear on issues confronting black intellectuals." -- M. Stewart, Austin College
"This study gives Africana existential philosophy perhaps its most exhaustive analysis... The author discerns a dominant and pervasive race consciousness in Africana existential thought... Gordon has made a definitive statement of the wealth, validity, and historicity of Africana existential thought." -- Tunde Adeleke, University of Montana
