In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Tragic Vision of African American ReligionPaul E. CapetzThe Tragic Vision of African American Religion Matthew V. Johnson New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 189 pp. $75.00Matthew Johnson’s profound book The Tragic Vision of African American Religion sheds new light upon the distinctive nature of African American religion. Adequate interpretation of this topic requires understanding the traumas inflicted upon Africans sold into slavery, their (...) existential predicaments before and after emancipation, and the ongoing plight of their descendants whose psyches have been indelibly scarred by this traumatic history. Johnson avails himself of the resources of philosophical theology, psychoanalytic theory, and literary criticism to argue his thesis that African American religion expresses a tragic vision of reality. Besides providing an illuminating analysis of the traumatic experience underlying this religious vision, Johnson presents a compelling constructive proposal as to the broader implications of his thesis for Christian theology at large.As a student of David Tracy and Langdon Gilkey, Johnson sees the necessity for rigorous philosophical reflection in theology. Because the spirituality of the black church stands in some real tension with the traditional theological categories inherited from Europe, Johnson proceeds with “a phenomenological orientation grounded in a philosophical hermeneutical approach” that allows him to excavate the traumatic experiences informing this spirituality (4). He skillfully uses the concepts of mourning, loss, longing, and desire developed in psychoanalytical theory to probe the significance of trauma for grasping the dynamics of African American spirituality. He engages literary criticism and argues convincingly for a distinction between “tragedy” as a literary genre and the tragic vision it articulates. Indeed, the tragic vision is prior to tragedy. The tragic is not the encounter with meaninglessness per se but “the always already aesthetic representation of the encounter, which preserves its terrible truth in a transfigured vision of reality” (6). This vision affirms life while facilitating “the recognition and embrace of the darker, more fundamental truths of life” (7).Cognizant that other theologians have declared the incompatibility of Christian faith with a tragic vision of reality, Johnson believes otherwise. He insists that the tragic is fundamental to human experience as such, although it is frequently evaded by strategies of foreclosure—including those of Christian theology—that falsify the experience. Yet the distinctive thing about the black religious experience is the way African Americans made the Christian faith [End Page 215] their own by transforming it at a deep spiritual level through their tragic vision. Mildly critical of previous formulations of black theology, Johnson contends that this involved much more than the affirmation that God cares about the sociopolitical liberation of oppressed people. The Christian tragic vision of the black experience offers the possibility of a new basis for “theology in an African American key” (6). Since he understands himself primarily as a Christian theologian, however, Johnson addresses an audience consisting of more than fellow black theologians. He rightly highlights a profound truth that white theologians have largely failed to grasp: the contribution of the black church “transcends the confines of African American culture to speak meaningfully to a Christian faith struggling to remain viable in a meaningful way” (10).James Cone once issued this challenge: “Why don’t white theologians make racism their issue?” White theologians who ponder Johnson’s book will begin to understand the full import of this challenge: by opening ourselves unreservedly to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, we may discover anew the meaning of that genuine humanity to which the gospel summons all people. A theological reformulation of Christian faith as tragic in the light of the traumas of the black experience could occasion a much needed reformation of the white churches in America.Paul E. CapetzUnited Theological Seminary of the Twin CitiesCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This collection demonstrates the strong influence that humanism and freethought had in developing the history and ideals of black intellectualism. Most people are quick to note the profound influence that religion has played in African-American history: consoling the downtrodden slave or inspiring the abolitionists, the underground railroad, and the civil rights movement. But few are aware of the role humanism played in shaping the black experience: developing the thought and motivating the actions of powerful African-American intellectuals. Section One (...) of this book offers biographical sketches of such prominent black humanists as Frederick Douglass, Cheikh Anta Diop, W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, and Richard Wright. Section Two features essays by black humanists: Douglass, DuBois, Charles W. Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Jaffree, Claude McKay, Melvin B. Tolson, and Bruce Wright. Section Three offers the views of contemporary black African humanists: Freda Amakye Ansah, Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Nkeonye Otakpor, Franz Vanderpuye, and Kwasi Wiredu. Section Four contains interviews conducted by Allen on the subjects of black humanist activism, the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, and the Harlem Renaissance with: Martin G. Bernal, Charles Faulkner, Leonard Harris, Norman Hill, and Alaine Locke. (shrink)

Through the back door: the problem of history and the African American philosopher/philosophy -- The problem of philosophy: metaphilosophical considerations -- The search for values: axiology in ebony -- Philosophy of science: African American deliberations -- Mapping the disciplinary contours of the philosophy of religion: reason, faith, and African American religious culture.

African American theologians tend not to find philosophy as a meaningful tool to advance their theological positions. _African Americans and Christianity_ offers an engaging and thorough bridge between African American theology and philosophy of religion.

The domestic legal obstacles to affirmative action to address the problem of the color line that have arisen in the United States in the past 30 years have become the occasion for discouragement and even despair in the face of the persistent racial disparities in American life. This is due, in part, to the limits of our domestic vocabulary for speaking about such initiatives. In this paper I argue that Christian ethics, with the help of the resources of the emergent (...) minority rights dialogue in international human rights, can play an important role in securing the cultural transformation needed to broaden our vocabulary and reframe our thinking so that our efforts to secure racial justice are not bound by the limits of the conventional domestic vocabulary. Specifically, I argue that the new international discussion of "the right to self-determination" can be usefully employed within Christian ethics to secure the cultural, moral and legal changes needed to secure racial justice in the United States. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 234-236 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey. By Jan Willis. New York: Riverhead Books, 2001. 321 pp. This book invites comparison with Diana Eck's Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). Both are by prominent women scholars, both have "spiritual journey" in (...) the subtitle, and both are about Christians who come to terms with a non-Christian religion—Hinduism in Eck's case, Buddhism in Willis's case. But as soon as one gets past the titles, it is the differences that strike one. Where Eck maintains an Olympian poise, hobnobbing with Hindus but remaining a Christian and an objective scholar, interpreting and analyzing as she goes, Willis plunges into Buddhism without rejecting her family's Baptist tradition, becoming a fully participant observer so as to ask how her own history and the history of her fellow African Americans can be healed by an intensely personal internal dialogue. Eck gives us theology. Willis gives us herself. Recognized as "one of the first American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism" (294), her students ask her if she practices meditation as well as teaching it. She gives a carefully crafted answer that unifies the practice of Buddhism with the practice of academic teaching as an authentically human activity within the Humanities.The book has the form of a Hindu epic, incidents from Willis's life interrupting the frame story, the dreaming of the title. This dream (whether actual or metaphorical, we are not told) moves with considerable dramatic power from the terror of being pursued by lions to the dreamer's transformation into a lioness who roars the Dharma like Queen Shrimala. Its five parts are called Birth, Odyssey, Choices, Becoming, and Return, taking us from her childhood as a Baptist in Docena, Alabama, to Cornell University, to India and Nepal, and back to Docena, as a self-described Baptist-Buddhist (310).Willis's journey is intimately bound up with her search for self-acceptance as a "white gal"—a noticeably light-complexioned black woman in the Jim Crow South —and for the nobility of African Americans as fully human beings. Her early experiences [End Page 234] were not encouraging. Blacks were not only physically segregated in Docena, they were electronically expunged from television shows by spurious technical difficulties ("trouble along the cable"), and she endured an attack by the Ku Klux Klan on her family's home. The customary but thoroughly illegal suffrage examination administered to her father included such questions as "How many words are there in the U.S. Constitution?" (58, italics in original). He had been specially prepared for such absurdities, and he passed. Midway in her pilgrimage Willis searches for her roots (or "kin," as she says, using the Southern word) in county and federal records, and her initial excitement turns to humiliation as the white historian tells her, with disdainful triumph, that her intelligence must have come from the white slave owner who "everybody says" was her "granddaddy's daddy" (251). A black woman was presumed to be lacking in native intelligence, and Willis's intellectual powers suffered insult not only from whites but from her own mother, who, perhaps having internalized the white folks' contempt, regarded being smart as somehow evil (25). As a student at Cornell, Willis discovered black power and participated in Black Student Alliance (BSA) demonstrations, sometimes involving guns, but she came to believe that direct political action was not for her. She was, she decided, a teacher at heart, and after much soul searching she opted for the "peaceful transformation" (129) that she hoped would come from the study and practice of Buddhism.Although her skin color was a puzzlement to some Indians, who wondered about her caste, her Tibetan teachers in Nepal accepted her as a student who was at least the equal of the white students, and even, perhaps, superior to them. A spot of blonde in her hair was interpreted as the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:African American Theological Ethics: A Reader ed. by Peter J. Paris and Julius CrumpCory J. MayAfrican American Theological Ethics: A Reader Edited by Peter J. Paris and Julius Crump LOUISVILLE, KY: WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2015. 350 PP. $45.00African American Theological Ethics: A Reader (AATE) is a thought-provoking title that piqued my interest upon first sight. I am an African American Christian who studies African (...) American Christianity, culture, history, and black theology. I wondered how the book would discuss African American theological ethics in terms of its articulation, embodiment, and practice. I also had reservations regarding the book's structure, the diversity of themes emphasized, and the balance between discussion of theology and of ethics. A few questions surfaced as I reflected upon the contents of the book. How is the term "theology" defined? Would the book discuss the particular ethical systems derived from monotheistic and polytheistic religions? How have African Americans contextualized their ethics in relation to God(s)? What is the central role of God(s) in this volume?The aim of the editors "is to provide a collection of resources that depict a broad range of theological and ethical reasoning that African Americans developed during two centuries of slavery, a subsequent century of racial segregation and discrimination, and another half century of continuing inequalities of opportunity and achievement" (xvii–xviii). Thus, the book has a strong sociopolitical emphasis. The reader should not expect theological ethics emphasizing the worship of God(s), religious doctrines, or proper religious living. Rather, AATE is a book of loosely interpreted political theologies and sociopolitical theological ethics. The themes of liberation, oppression, race, slavery, and white supremacy are governing hermeneutics that saturate the book's content. As Peter Paris and Julius Crump suggest, "it is important to note that African American theological ethics is not an abstract theoretical enterprise. Rather, it is a form of inquiry that is clearly related to African American studies in history and sociology both of which either imply or reveal a normative bias for racial justice" (xviii).AATE is a collection of thirty-seven essays and excerpts written by influential thinkers in African American history. Works are presented by such popular figures as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Martin Luther King Jr., Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois. The first four sections of the book are ethical in their approaches and display works emphasizing opposition to white supremacy. Part 1, titled "Opposing the Doctrine of White Supremacy," has a solitary essay from Martin R. Delany's work, The Origin of Race and Colour. Parts 2, 3, and 4—"Opposing Slavery," "Opposing Racial Segregation," and "Opposing Racial Discrimination," respectively—contain works from Shirley Chisholm, Barack [End Page 217] Obama, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Barbara Jordan, and more. The last two parts change the focus of the book from the theme of opposition and theologically center the discourse on African American ingenuity toward different aspects of life. Part 5 assembles essays from scholars such as Jacquelyn Grant and James Cone under the title of "African American Religious Creativity." The last section displays essays from James Weldon Johnson and Peter J. Paris under the banner of "African American Themes and Perspectives."AATE is a good anthology of discourses that have a strong emphasis on social justice. It would be greatly complemented by other selections that emphasize African American theological ethics apart from sociopolitical issues. It is an informative book that contributes to the genre of African American anthologies; it would strengthen any introductory course on African American theology and is beneficial for anyone seeking broad exposure to the development of African American theological ethics. AATE could be read alongside titles such as Katie G. Cannon and Anthony B. Pinn's The Oxford Handbook of African American Theology, or Paul E. Johnson's African American Christianity: Essays in History.Cory J. MayThe University of AberdeenCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African American Challenge to Just War Theory: A Christian Approach by Ryan P. CummingCory J. MayThe African American Challenge to Just War Theory: A Christian Approach Ryan P. Cumming new york: palgrave macmillan, 2013. 239 pp. $95.00The provocative title of Ryan Cumming’s The African American Challenge to Just War Theory: A Christian Approach builds subtle tension with regard to how a European American scholar (...) has articulated an interpretation of African American views regarding war. In the end, however, the title of the book appears to be a bit misleading.Cumming believes traditional just war theory has been articulated primarily by those within the politicoreligious and sociocultural majority of the Western (white) world. These various traditions have at times created, sustained, and overlooked forms of inequality and oppression as they sought to establish national security and democracy in foreign lands. For Cumming, this has occurred because these traditions have neglected proper consideration toward, dialogue with, and support for the marginalized of the world. Therefore, the partial aim of Cumming’s book “is not to problematize war, but to problematize just war theory and to offer directions for correcting these deficiencies” (3). Cumming seeks to evaluate various aspects of African American political and religious thought as a means to correcting these deficiencies created by the European or European American elite.For Cumming, African Americans are representative of the marginalized, a powerless people within a powerful nation who have created traditions of critical thought, participation, and protest regarding the political affairs of the United States. They therefore embody a unique dual identity that “has encouraged identification with other marginalized groups across the globe. They thus displayed a globalized political perspective long before the realm of politics itself became globalized” (4–5). The dual identity of African Americans has been created from, and creates, what is referred to as the “hermeneutic of suspicion”—the critical way of thinking and living in the world that allows the marginalized to evaluate the thoughts and actions of the elite in ways the elite’s self-reflection cannot accomplish.The major difficulty of the book resides in the fact that African American voices assume a subjugated position to their European and European American counterparts. Only one of the book’s five chapters specifically engages African Americans, making it seem as if African American thought is merely an [End Page 201] addendum to Cumming’s critique of European and European American scholars. He provides a rather general and selective overview of African American views regarding government, politics, and war, employing the voices of Martin Luther King Jr., Manning Marable, Benjamin E. Mays, Howard Thurman, Henry McNeal Turner, and Cornel West, among others; Cumming appears to have a special affinity for liberation theology and James Cone. Readers knowledgeable about African American thought may question whether Cumming could have further distinguished political theologies within African American Christianity, specifically concentrating on the diversity and development of African American reflection upon just war theory.Although African American voices are not at the forefront of his argument, Cumming nevertheless provides an impressively detailed introductory discussion of traditional Christian thought about just war, including basic theories of jus ad bellum (decisions made before war), jus in bello (conduct during war), and jus post bellum (the ending of war and potential outcome) according to the likes of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Hugo Grotius, and the School of Salamanca: Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez. He also engages a wide variety of contemporary theorists regarding America’s involvement in various global wars, including Vietnam, Iraq, and the war on terror. Cumming’s challenge to the theoretical stances of Europeans and European American thinkers is well worth the effort, encouraging them to consider sincere dialogue with the marginalized of the world—beginning with African Americans.Cory J. MayUniversity of Aberdeen, ScotlandCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

African and African American Christian ethics comprises an assemblage of disciplines and traditions that address the embodied experiences of black people and provide moral guidance for life in community. Its progenitors helped to establish it as a field of ethical inquiry despite marginalization and hostility and in contrast to dominant ethical traditions that privilege concepts over encounters with embodied life. African and African American Christian ethics privileges embodied encounter as the location for determining a moral hermeneutic (...) in order to recalibrate our understanding of communal relationships toward healthier norms, for the sake of the entire community’s survival and wholeness. (shrink)

This paper is an analysis of comparative multiculturalisms. Starting from the historical reality that both the Roma and the African-Americans were reified through slavery and discriminated against because of their racial visibility, the author analyses the position of the two groups in the Romanian, namely, the American society. The lead of the African-Americans in overcoming the racial stigma is explained by the author through: the opportunities offered by a powerful and consolidated democracy, and by the existence (...) of an elite of the minority group. These factors should be envisaged by Romanian society when trying to make both the minority and the majority cooperate in order to avoid the transformation of the Roma into an under-class group, a great challenge with a view to Romania’s integration into the EU structures. (shrink)

Economic cooperative practices increase the ability of agents and communities to resist or curb ecologically damaging practices and to adapt to inevitable cultural and material transitions due to climate change. The history of African American economic cooperatives demonstrates how such efforts can build practical and leadership skills, transform local culture, and lay groundwork for wider collective action. Such practices fit Willis Jenkins’s model of prophetic pragmatism insofar as they draw on inherited traditions and transform culture and us. Contemporary Christians (...) and church communities can encourage economic cooperation as a form of resistance to ecological destruction and, in doing so, encourage the habits of humility, hope, and courage. (shrink)

This article is a critical race theology analysis that asserts that Catholic social teaching established in documents such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Populorum progressio, Caritas in veritate, and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s Contribution to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance justifies reparations for the state of oppression commonly called Jim Crow, or segregation society, from the US government because it denied African Americans “truly human conditions.”.

In the recent Anglo-American philosophy of religion, significant attention has been given to the nature of faith. My goal is to show that some of the recent discussion of faith can be fruitfully brought to bear on a problem for a less globally well-known version of monotheism found in African Traditional Religion. I argue that African Traditional Religion could benefit from utilizing non-doxastic accounts of faith. For a significant number of Africans questioning authority or tradition, including the tenets (...) of African Traditional Religion is viewed as harmful to the community and hence beyond the pale. A non-doxastic account of faith would be helpful for adherents of African Traditional Religion who find themselves disbelieving yet wanting to continue in religious practice and maintain communal harmony. This is because a non-doxastic state such as hope is within one’s direct control and does not require as much evidential justification as rational belief. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue that the discourse over the existence of the Devil/Satan has no place among the religious cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. This may be contrasted with the numerous efforts in the dominant philosophy of religion tradition in the Anglo-American sphere, where efforts toward the establishing grounds for the existence of God have occupied and commanded so much attention. On the other hand, it seems to have been taken for granted that Devil, the One who is antagonistic (...) of God, among the Abrahamic monotheisms, is assumed to exist and does not require serious intellectual elaboration. For my aim, I explore the traditional Yorùbá and Igbo religious cultures to foreground that God. In the traditional belief system of these two religious cultures, there is no place to entertain the idea of a necessarily antagonistic entity, popularly called the Devil.Whereas I recognise previous scholarships that have served to show that Èṣù and Ekwensu in each of these religious cultures are not synonymous with Devil in the Abrahamic monotheisms, I move beyond these to establishing the ontological framework which endorses the absence of a Devil, even when evil lingers in the world. If the argument that there is no Devil/Satan in these religious cultures is proved valid, then it is pertinent to tender the origin and persistence of evil in the world. For this task, I explore the process-relational character of Yorùbá and Igbo theology to reinforce my conviction concerning the peoples’ belief in the existence of God in Chukwu and Olódùmarè, the presence of evil in the world, without encountering the philosophical problem of evil. (shrink)

Americans claim to be the most religious people in the Christian world. Religion has informed their politics ever since the Pilgrim Fathers, who began the tyranny of the majority which Tocqueville outlined in Democracy in America (1985), his version of Aristotle's ‘ochlocracy’. In recent times this has taken the form of the ‘moral majority’ institutionalized by Jerry Falwell and the fundamentalists who set out to capture the Republican Party under Nixon and Reagan. In fact, it was never a majority: (...) ‘born again’ Christians, not all of the right‐wing in politics, were less than one fifth of a national sample in 1980 ‐ a third of African Americans, who voted ten to one against Reagan. Nonetheless they influenced every President from Eisenhower to Bush, and they are the major force behind the move to impeach Clinton. Since they failed, they may now give way for a more moderate politics of Christian forgiveness. (shrink)

The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, particularly those (...) working in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Individual in Relation to the Sangha in American Buddhism:An Examination of "Privatized Religion"Kenneth K. TanakaIn his celebrated book Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam noted the increased level in the phenomenon of "privatized religion" within the previous thirty-five years. Many of the Baby Boomer generation left churches in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Some sought out new religious movements and religious therapies, but most simply "dropped out" of (...) organized religion altogether. He cites Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, specialists in American religion, who describe the outcome of this trend in American religious behavior: "[The consequence was a] tendency toward highly individualized religious psychology without the benefits of strong supportive attachments to believing communities. A major impetus in this direction in the post-1960s was the thrust toward greater personal fulfillment and quest for the ideal self.... In this climate of expressive individualism, religion tends to become "privatized," or anchored in the personal realms."1 Putnam observes that although privatized religion may be "morally compelling and psychologically fulfilling," it involves less social capital than environments in which individuals are connected to other individuals in shared faith commitment.Interestingly, American Buddhism may be one of the beneficiaries of this trend, for the recent growth of Buddhism in the United States is partly attributable to the climate of "privatized" religion. Nowhere is this symbolized more than by the so-called Nightstand Buddhists.2The Nightstand Buddhists derive their name from their practice of placing a Buddhist meditation book on the nightstand after reading it before they go to sleep. They get up the next morning and practice to the best of their ability the meditation they had read about the night before. Further, they may frequently attend lectures at the local university and visit a Buddhist center's web-page or participate in an online Buddhist discussion group. And if we were to visit them, we might find their homes decorated with Buddhist artifacts.But these Nightstand Buddhists do not show up in any statistics on the [End Page 115] American Buddhist population because they would not identify themselves as Buddhists. According to Thomas Tweed, who coined the term Nightstand Buddhists, "Sympathizers (= Nightstand Buddhists) are those who have some sympathy for Buddhism but do not embrace it exclusively or fully. When asked, they would not identify themselves as Buddhists. They would say they are Methodists, or Jewish, or unaffiliated."3 However, they have been an important part of the story of Buddhism in America from its beginning and continue to be so today.Among the three million Buddhists currently estimated to be in the United States, I believe there are Buddhists who exhibit many of the same characteristics as the Nightstand Buddhists. And this number is significant, particularly among those converts to Buddhism whose main practice is meditation. This group of convert Buddhists is one segment of the larger Buddhist community in the United States, which I have categorized into four groups.41. New Asian American Buddhists (those who have mostly arrived in the United States since the 1960s: Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Cambodian, Myanmar, Laotian, and Sri Lankan).2. Old-line Asian American Buddhists (those who were established before World War II: Chinese and Japanese).3. Convert Buddhists whose main practice is meditation (predominately Euro-Americans practicing in the Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan traditions).4. Convert Buddhists whose main practice is chanting (Sōkagakkai International–USA, a sizable percentage of whom are African and Hispanic Americans).In this paper, I wish to focus on a Jōdo Shinshū temple from the second group (old-line Asian American Buddhists) and on several centers collectively that belong to the Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan traditions from the third group (convert Buddhists whose main practice is meditation), looking at the manner in which individuals relate to their respective institutions and traditions, with special attention given to the phenomenon of "privatized religion."For purposes of this paper, my definition of "privatized religion" is based on the observation of Roof and McKinney, cited above, as "a tendency for individuals (1) to emphasize practicing at home over religious centers, and (2) to value the subjective and the inward." The homebound orientation is connected... (shrink)

This article builds on my recent engagement with James Cone’s binary view of Africanness and Christianity which focused on his Western locus of enunciation and the criticism he received from his African American colleagues. I believe that analogical questions regarding Christian theology’s attitude towards Africanness in general and African religiosity in particular present themselves to us who live in and try to make sense of South African reality today, including white people like myself. I start by introducing (...) a decolonial perspective as it manifests itself through the recent #MustFall student movements. In this context, I offer three theses regarding the decolonial perspective on African religiosity, each of which constitutes a more or less direct critique of Cone’s ambivalent attitude towards Africanness, and African Traditional Religions in particular. The first thesis concerns the distinction between postcoloniality and decoloniality; the second thesis concerns engaging African religiosity as a requirement for decolonising Christian theology; and the third thesis concerns problematising the relationship between the categories of blackness and Africanness. (shrink)

_American Philosophy: The Basics_ introduces the history of American thought from early Calvinists to the New England Transcendentalists and from contract theory to contemporary African American philosophy. The key question it asks is: what it is that makes American Philosophy unique? This lively and compelling book moves through key periods in the development of American thought from the founding fathers to the transcendentalists and pragmatists to contemporary social commentators. Readers are introduced to: Some of the most important thinkers in (...) American history including Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine, Charles Sanders Pierce, Thomas Kuhn, Cornel West and many more Developments in five key areas of thought: epistemology, metaphysics, religion and ethics, social philosophy, and political philosophy The contributions of American women, African-Americans and Native Americans. Featuring suggestions for further reading and assuming no prior knowledge of philosophy, this is an ideal first introduction for anyone studying or interested in the history of American thought. (shrink)

In Interplay of Things Anthony B. Pinn theorizes religion as a technology for interrogating human experiences and the boundaries between people and other things. Rather than considering religion in terms of institutions, doctrines, and creeds, Pinn shows how religion exposes the openness and porousness of all things and how they are always involved in processes of exchange and interplay. Pinn examines work by Nella Larsen and Richard Wright that illustrates an openness between things and traces how pop art and readymades (...) point to the multidirectional nature of influence. He also shows how Ron Athey's and Clifford Owens' performance art draws out inherent interconnectedness to various cultural codes in ways that reveal the symbiotic relationship between art and religion as a technology. Theorizing that antiblack racism and gender- and class-based hostility constitute efforts to close off the porous nature of certain bodies, Pinn shows how many artists have rebelled against these attempts to counter openness. His analyses offer a means with which to understand the porous, unbounded, and open nature of humans and things. (shrink)

Judaism is one of the oldest surviving religious traditions in the world. The Jews, who base their history on Abraham and his son Isaac, began to be called religion with Moses. The Jews, who lived their golden age in and around Jerusalem during the David and Solomon periods, also built the Temple, which was at the center of their religious life. The Jews, who rebuilt the Temple during the Babylonian exile and subsequently Ezra's reign, lived in these lands until the (...) destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The statelessness that started after the destruction of the temple had an important place in the Jewish identity. The exile life, which continued for two thousand years, caused the Jews to go to different parts of the world and live there. In this period, which is expressed as the period of exile, Jews lived in many regions such as Africa, Anatolia, Europe and America. The arrival of the Jews in the Americas dates back to the Columbus era. Jews were present in South America and subsequently in the British colonies. Currently, most of the Jews in the world live in the USA. Among the Jews who went to the Americas, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews constitute the majority. However, in the Americas, Jews have formed different groups over time. These include groups such as Conservative, Orthodox, Reformist, and Reconstructionist. Jewish groups formed by African-Americans also have a special place among these formations. These African-American Jews in the USA, are discussed within the framework of this article. In the article, firstly, a piece of brief information about Judaism in America was given, and then the relations between Blacks and Jews were discussed. Afterward, the main features of these formations, which are of African origin and consider themselves the descendants of the Israelites, are emphasized. Finally, the Jewish groups established by Black Jews were contacted and if they had different practices and beliefs from the others, they were included. The research was carried out based on the literature review and information was given about the prominent black Jewish groups. (shrink)

Provides a much-needed humanities-based analysis and description of humanism in relation to theses cultural markers. Whereas most existing analysis attempts to explain humanism through the natural and social sciences (the "what" of life), Anthony B. Pinn explores humanism in relation to "how" life is arranged, socialized, ritualized, and framed. This ground-breaking publication brings together old and new essays on a wide range of topics and themes, from the African-American experience, to the development of humanist churches, and the lyrics of (...) Jay-Z. (shrink)

Because a title such as the one I have assigned to this contribution could either prompt all sorts of expectations or lead to forming no expectations at all, it seems important at the outset to begin by indicating what I shall not be concerned with. On the face of it the title could seem to call for a discussion of the way religious consciousness is expressed in the framework of this or that particular rational system or culture, presumably contemporary—be it (...) Hispanic, African, American Indian, Asiatic, European, or whatever. There can be no question that such a discussion would be significant, involving as it does the important contemporary concept of “acculturation,” which seeks to obviate the unfortunate identification of religion and any particular cultural or rational form of its expression. I shall not, in fact, be concerned with any particular culture or system at all, while, on the other hand, from the religious point of view I shall, like Hegel, be concerned only with Christianity, not as particular but as universal; not as a one among many but as all-embracing religious awareness. (shrink)

This paper examines Cornel West’s attempt to offer an alternative to the dominant liberal view concerning the proper role of religion in the democratic public square. Whereas mainstream liberals seek strategies to keep religion and public life separate, West seeks to dissolve the apparent tension between religion and democratic citizenship by reconstructing religion pragmatically such that it can be rendered compatible with democracy. I argue that West’s proposal fails to be a viable alternative precisely because the “prophetic pragmatism” underwriting his (...) view is unethical to the extent that it relies upon manipulative relationships with traditional religious believers in African-American churches. (shrink)

African-American Philosophers brings into conversation seventeen of the foremost thinkers of color to discuss issues such as Black existentialism, racism, Black women philosophers within the academy, affirmative action and the conceptual parameters of African-American philosophy.

_A Communion of Subjects_ is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their (...) findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live. Contributors examine Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, traditions from ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal traditions, among others. They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. By grappling with the nature and ideological features of various religious views, the contributors cast religious teachings and practices in a new light. They reveal how we either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize "others," whether they are human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which we assign value to living beings. Though it is an ancient concern, the topic of "Religion and Animals" has yet to be systematically studied by modern scholars. This groundbreaking collection takes the first steps toward a meaningful analysis. (shrink)

_African-American Philosophers_ brings into conversation seventeen of the foremost thinkers of color to discuss issues such as Black existentialism, racism, Black women philosophers within the academy, affirmative action and the conceptual parameters of African-American philosophy.

In this timely book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of (...) class='Hi'>African American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black, or that short-circuit imaginative responses to problems confronting actual black people. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking, and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity, Glaude argues, can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied. Heady, inspirational, and brimming with practical wisdom, In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

_A Communion of Subjects_ is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry, Wendy Doniger, Elizabeth Lawrence, Marc Bekoff, Marc Hauser, Steven Wise, Peter Singer, and Jane Goodall consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in (...) which we all live. Contributors examine Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, traditions from ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal traditions, among others. They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. By grappling with the nature and ideological features of various religious views, the contributors cast religious teachings and practices in a new light. They reveal how we either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize "others," whether they are human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which we assign value to living beings. Though it is an ancient concern, the topic of "Religion and Animals" has yet to be systematically studied by modern scholars. This groundbreaking collection takes the first steps toward a meaningful analysis. (shrink)

In this provocative book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of (...) class='Hi'>African American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, _In a Shade of Blue_ seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Glaude argues that only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied, an argument echoed in the recent rhetoric and optimism of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. __ _I__n a Shade of Blue_ is a remarkable work of political commentary and to follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their cultural and political history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century. “Eddie Glaude is the towering public intellectual of his generation.”—Cornel West “Eddie Glaude is poised to become the leading intellectual voice of our generation, raising questions that make us reexamine the assumptions we hold by expanding our inventory of ideas.”—Tavis Smiley. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religion, the Globalization of War, and Restorative JusticeNathan TierneyAs the pace of globalization increases, the world's religions find themselves in a perilous dilemma that they have yet to resolve in either practical or conceptual terms. On the one hand, the globalization of markets exerts a powerful pressure toward consumerist and materialist values, which undermine and undercut religious perspectives and sensibilities. On the other hand, the globalization of war heightens (...) the intensity of these religious perspectives and sensibilities, and distorts them in the direction of violence and religious extremism. This dilemma plays itself out in different ways in the developed and developing world, but, as the term "globalization" indicates, it is a problem for all of us. Governments, in developing countries especially, often find themselves forced to choose between one horn of the dilemma or the other, with often disastrous results as they take one or the other side in a "West versus the rest" scenario. In the long run, the only viable solution is one that addresses both horns of the dilemma at the same time, and this is possible only if, in turn, religions themselves become truly global. This will require a large-scale and focused cooperative effort in which the religions of the world actively and jointly engage with both problems, working with governments, NGOs, religious communities, and interfaith groups to harmonize religious life with economics and to promote a culture of peace and justice.Because "globalization" is a familiar term in relation to markets, I'll begin by clarifying what I mean by the globalization of war. There are two main aspects to this phenomenon. First, the term refers to a specific transformation in the nature, purposes, and conditions of warfare brought about by the forces of globalization. By globalization I mean the growing trend of the world's cultural, economic, and political forces to bypass national borders and operate on a world scale. This process creates new possibilities for both integration and conflict. When that conflict passes beyond the possibility of diplomatic negotiation, we have the conditions for globalized war. Globalized war is not necessarily world war. It can be relatively local in its sphere of combat; for example, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was a collective response to a worldwide threat of terrorism. What makes it a globalized war, as distinct from international war, is the global nature of the forces that produced it and [End Page 79] are affected by it. Globalized war in this sense has come only lately onto the scene, but its scale and impact is likely to grow in the coming century.The second aspect of the globalization of war is the tendency of conflict to mutate beyond the interests and concerns of nation-states and be taken up by broader civilizational units, even if they were not originally a response to global pressures. The most likely trajectory for this mutation has been well described by Samuel P. Huntington in his influential article "The Clash of Civilizations" (1993) and his book-length treatment of the same subject (1997). Huntington argues that the fault lines of conflict will not be primarily ideological or economic but cultural, where "cultural" is to be understood at its broadest level—the level of civilizations. He divides the world into seven or eight competing civilizations: Western, Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African. Societies sharing cultural affinities will cooperate with one another, and the attempt by the West to universalize its dominant version of consumer capitalism and liberal democracy will be resisted in an increasingly determined way—eventually to the point of outright war: "the next world war, if there is one, will be a war between civilizations."1In Huntington's analysis, then, the globalization of war refers to a coming clash of civilizations. He believes that religion will play a central role in this clash as the focal point of civilizations: "Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture tradition and, most important, religion."2 While Western civilization has experienced several decades of decline and decay, in both its cultural unity and its sense of identity, other civilizations have grown both in economic terms and... (shrink)

Purpose: A poetic work of fiction haunts the base of the Statue of Liberty. The act overshadowed the original tribute to the Civil War victory and the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln's praises of the Black American military fell silent. Eurocentrists shrouded centuries of genius and scaled-down Black American mastery. Sagas of barrier-breaking Olympians, military heroes, Wild West pioneers, and inventors ended as forgotten footnotes. Today, countries around the world fetishize Black American history and culture to the point of ethnocide. The (...) real-time case study of Woni Spotts explores the phenomenon. Until ancient traditions evolve with authenticity, global cultures will wither and die. The presented research chronicles over half a millennium of archives. Lists with names, dates, and genealogies seal the Black American legacy in stone. Methodology: The presented research for case studies draws from archival data, dated events, news articles, and an interview with Woni Spotts. The case studies generated three lists. Fifty sports and competitions were dated and cataloged. The athletes were analyzed by a genealogist. Forty music and dance genres were cataloged by publishing or recording dates. The artists were analyzed by a genealogist. Copyright infringements were noted. Inventors were researched for U.S. patents. NASA astronauts and inventors were analyzed by a genealogist. Findings: The presented research showed centuries of untold, reframed, stigmatized, and fetishized Black American history and culture. In the case studies, foreigners of African descent (Africans, Caribbeans, Central Americans, and South Americans) practiced ethnocidal behavior in concert with European descendants. Prolific abolitionists, patriots, politicians, and inventors were written out of history. Superstar athletes were obstructed or outshined by fictional Recommendations: Case studies showed centuries of fragmented narratives created biases and distortions. Black Americans were written out of history, reframed as background characters, stigmatized with skewed statistics, and fetishized globally to the point of ethnocide. The presented research stands as a vital resource for preservationists. Music and dance genre architects were solidified by publishing and recording dates. Athletic events, inventions, and NASA scientists were recorded. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics by Hak Joon Lee, and: Democracy in Twenty-First Century America: Race, Class, Religion, and Region by Ronald B. NealReggie L. WilliamsThe Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics HAK JOON LEE Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2011. 256 pp. $25.00Democracy in Twenty-First Century America: Race, Class, Religion, and Region RONALD B. NEAL Macon, GA: Mercer (...) University Press, 2012. 138 pp. $30.00On Christmas Eve 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. asked the members of a congregation to recognize that they are—every day—interacting with many different nations all around the world as they maneuver throughout their normal daily routines. Hak Joon Lee’s The Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics examines the implications of this daily global interaction as the need for a broader ethical perspective in a shrinking world. The need begins with the realization that we do indeed inhabit a shrinking world in which our local behavior has a broader global impact. Once we recognize the moral implications of our local interaction, it becomes clear that we must learn how to live together in a broader community.But how do we speak the language of a global morality? What does a global morality look like? Lee argues that King’s metaphor of a great world house provides a structure on which to frame the content of a healthy global morality in a shrinking world. The metaphor indicates a collective understanding of all humanity as a global community (ix). The notion of a single world house moves people groups beyond rival communities with well-defined in-group and out-group barriers into what Lee describes as a global civil society where we are all seen as members of a collective in-group (13). The concept of a collective in-group helps illustrate what Lee understands to be King’s argument for a global morality; “King’s idea of a great world house redefines what the boundaries and membership of a moral community are: the great world house constitutes a single inclusive ethical community for humanity because it identifies the world as a single unified community” (53). [End Page 234]But as laudable as King’s great world house metaphor is, we are still burdened with the task of imagining a universal moral language in practice. Efforts toward the formation of universal truths have historically been death-dealing for people groups caught on the wrong side of the color line. A one-size-fits-all morality has been a procrustean bed for people who have been racialized and subordinated to white European males. Yet Lee interprets King’s method of universal engagement to begin with convictions shared at home within the particularity of his African American Christian worldview before it moves outward toward a shared vision of a global civil society. The movement from particular to universal for a public morality is unlike the historically harmful practice of universal morality. King’s universal method includes attention to four components: vision, norms, virtues, and political practices. These four components belong to what Lee depicts as a careful and intricate dialectic between what is local and what is universal in a political dialogue that seeks the end of a global civil society with shared conceptions of community and human rights.Ironically, with regard to the conversation about human rights, Lee claims that King’s formative African American interpretation of human rights was primarily informed by the Enlightenment and then blended with an African American experience: “Mostly appropriated from Christianity and the Western Enlightenment tradition, these norms [justice, freedom, and equality] obtained a new significance for African Americans in the context of the sizzling cauldron of slavery and segregation” (55). Yet one would be hard pressed to identify the presence of modern Enlightenment intellectuals within the formative theological worldview of the African American Christianity that Lee identifies. Of necessity, African American Christianity, the Christian worldview that birthed Martin Luther King Jr., was formed to deflect the white Christian worldview that was shaped by the intersection of race, religion, and empire in modernity. The Enlightenment fueled modernity’s... (shrink)

This article focuses on the experiences of 29 African American teachers in K–12 institutions in Southern California. The article reports on the major themes of the participating teachers’ shared narratives in light of the theory of racial micro-aggression; their responses include evidence that racial micro-aggression during interactions with nonminority organizational members have had a negative impact on their experience. These findings, which are consistent with the neophyte literature, reveal a unique opportunity for scholars to engage in cutting edge research (...) and also suggest the need to integrate training specific to racial micro-aggression in professional development and teacher education programs in order to improve the experience of African American teachers in the future. (shrink)

A special issue of The Philosophical Forum , one of the most prestigious philosophy journals, is now available to a wider readership through its publication in book form. The volume includes twelve essays in three sections-- Philosophical Traditions; the African-American Tradition; and Racism, Identity, and Social Life. Contributors are: K. Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu, Lucius Outlaw, Leonard Harris, Bernard Boxill, Frank M. Kirkland, Tommy L. Lott, Adrian M.S. Piper, Laurence Thomas, Michele M. Moody-Adams, Anita L. Allen, and Howard McGary. (...) The introduction is by John P. Pittman. (shrink)

In this article I argue that African-American philosophy emerges from a socio-existential context where persons of African descent have been faced with the absurd in the form of white racism. The concept of struggle, given the above, functions as both descriptive and heuristic vis-à-vis the meaning of African-American philosophy. Expanding upon Charles Mills’ concept of non-Cartesian sums, I demonstrate the inextricable link between Black lived experience, struggle, and the morphology of meta-philosophical assumptions and philosophical problems specific to (...) African-American philosophy. Then, I provide a sketch of two early African-American philosophers whose philosophical work is, though neglected, indispensable to African-American philosophical legitimating practices and whose work is informed by the defining motif of struggle. Lastly, I demonstrate the efforts of Africana philosophers at creating philosophical sites that nurture a sense of shared struggle and community. (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)

If we are dissatisfied with our situation in life, we often dream of how our life could be improved. Most basically, we want a full stomach, decent clothing and housing, and a sense of security, and millions of people in the world today do not now have these things. Throughout American history, African Americans were kept from achieving this most basic decent life, let alone the more complex needs that become possible for those who fulfill the first needs. (...) All the elements of this fundamental vision are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948 but was not ratified by the United States until 1992. Among the rights included in the Universal Declaration are Article 4. No one... (shrink)