PHIL 280 - Africana Philosophy

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as AFRS 280 The following intermediate-level intensive class provides a historical survey and conceptual introduction to Africana Philosophy. Taking a global approach, the class shows the inter-continental and trans-historical conversations that Africana Philosophy has had with other Philosophical disciplines and schools. This trans-historical and cosmopolitan approach thus reveals the multiplicitous referents of Africana Philosophy and its various practices, methods, and areas of inquiry. Topics addressed include Blackness and the invention(s) of Africa, Blackness and an Anti-Black World, the lived experience of the black, (para-)ontological and racial difference, intersectionality, a poetics of relations, the gifts of black folk, and cosmopolitics. Philosophical approaches studied include black marxism, black existentialism, black feminism, anti-colonial resistance, critical race theory, afro-pessimism, and black ops. Authors studied include David Walker, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neal Hurston, Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, Édouard Glissant, Hortense Spillers, Achille Mbembe, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lewis Gordon, Denise Ferreira Da Silva, Fred Moten, and Frank Wilderson.

The Intensive class focuses on six questions throughout the semester; these questions are both present in the literature as well as be formulated in conversation with students. The Intensive class focuses on one of those specific questions every two weeks and assembles a list of work surrounding that question, offering different answers. Work for this Intensive class includes constellation (packet-style) reading where students divide up the reading among one another, experimental writing, co-produced work, and video essays.

Osman Nemli.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: INT