Abstract

There is more engagement with philosophy—Western and Eastern—in my work than you will find anywhere in the history of black American literature.1the coss dialogues, which began in 1995, resulted from a generous endowment provided to SAAP from the estates of Herbert W. Schneider and Albert G. Redpath, both students of John J. Coss at Columbia University. The dialogues are intended to promote conversation between philosophers in the “classic” American tradition and accomplished specialists in other fields. They seek to bridge the seeming distance across disciplinary boundaries, thus promoting shared inquiry around themes, issues, questions of common interest to American philosophy and, for example, the social and...