Paget introduces the general reader to Afro-Caribbean philosophy in this ground-breaking work. Since Afro-Caribbean thought is inherently hybrid in nature, he traces the roots of this discourse in traditional African thought and in the Christian and Enlightenment traditions of Western Europe.

In this paper, I argue that macro-theorizing in the field of Caribbean sociology is going through a crisis of transition from the third to the fourth major period in its 100-year-old process of historical development. It is a transition from a period in which the houses of earlier Caribbean macro-theorizing in the social sciences, such as creole theory, cultural pluralism and dependency theory, were blown from the center and displaced by the simultaneous arrival of two re-colonizing intellectual hurricanes from the (...) temperate north: American neoliberalism and French poststructuralism. Battered by these two imperial storms, macro-theorizing in Caribbean sociology was caught in what the paper calls a neocolonial squeeze. After unleashing their destructive and seductive winds, Neo and Post, these two intellectual hurricanes, have been receding for some time. Their departing has been creating what the paper calls a post-neoliberal/post-poststructuralist opening. It then takes up the issue of what we should be doing in this opening to repair fallen intellectual houses and revive our tradition of macro-theorizing in Caribbean sociology. (shrink)

This remembrance of the life and work of our friend and colleague, Drucilla Cornell, is a view of her through the lenses of Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt and through her lively participation in the Caribbean Philosophical Association. As a result, it focuses on her as a philosopher who had mastered the Western tradition of transcendental philosophy. From that base, she engaged the traditions of Western Marxism and Feminism, and was deeply engaged in mastering the traditions of Caribbean Marxism and creolizing (...) theory. (shrink)

This paper outlines a code-theoretic approach to the substantive and pedagogical challenges created by the distinct interdisciplinary nature of the field of Africana Studies. It identifies some of the key discourse-constitutive codes and some strategies for suspending disciplinary boundaries created by these necessary codes, which should help us to navigate better the spaces between the disciplines engaged by Africana Studies. After examining these codes and methods for transcending them, the paper concludes with some pedagogical strategies for teaching these interdisciplinary aspects (...) of the field. (shrink)

For more than half a century, C. L. R. James (1901–1989)—"the Black Plato," as coined by the London _Times_—has been an internationally renowned revolutionary thinker, writer, and activist. Born in Trinidad, his lifelong work was devoted to understanding and transforming race and class exploitation in his native West Indies, as well as in Britain and the United States. In _C. L. R. James's Caribbean_, noted scholars examine the roots of both James's life and oeuvre in connection with the economic, social, (...) and political environment of the West Indies. Drawing upon James's observations of his own life as revealed to interviewers and close friends, this volume provides an examination of James's childhood and early years as colonial literatteur and his massive contribution to West Indian political-cultural understanding. Moving beyond previous biographical interpretations, the contributors here take up the problem of reading James's texts in light of poststructuralist criticism, the implications of his texts for Marxist discourse, and for problems of Caribbean development. (shrink)

This paper is an account of the author’s emergence as an Afro-Caribbean philosopher, although formally trained and still working in the discipline of sociology. In order to complete this account, I made use of an Akan theory of the self and the circular path of its development, in order to integrate the details of the influences, major phases, and changes leading to my emergence as a Caribbean philosopher, as well as some of the academic challenges to the field of Caribbean (...) philosophy as a whole that had to be overcome. (shrink)

This paper examines the long dialogue between Africana phenomenology and Africana feminism. In particular, it examines the exchanges between WEB Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Lewis Gordon and Sylvia Wynter on the one hand, and a number of black feminists on the other, including bell hooks, Natasha Barnes, Farrah Griffin, and Joy James. The primary outcome of the survey of these exchanges is that the pro-feminist spaces created by black male phenomenologists have all been insufficient for the full representation of the (...) black female voice. In the words of Sylvia Wynter, such a full representation can only come through "a feminism in its own name". (shrink)

For the past 30 years, Paget Henry has been one of the most articulate and creative voices in Caribbean scholarship, making seminal contributions to the study of Caribbean political economy, C.L.R. James studies, critical theory, phenomenology, and Africana philosophy. This volume includes some of his most important essays from across his remarkable career, providing an introduction to a broad range of pressing contemporary themes and to the unique mind of one of the leading Caribbean intellectuals of his generation.

This paper is an attempt to introduce the thought of the Martinican philosopher, René Ménil to the English-speaking world. It suggests that his philosophy can best be characterized as an aesthetic Marxism, which moved through three crucial phases: (1) a surrealist/French communist phase; (2) a Black poeticist/French communist phase; and (3) a critical poeticist/Martinican communist phase. The passage through these three phases was marked by an increasing and more fixed centering of the aesthetic that created very real tensions with its (...) politico-economic base. The paper explores these tensions through a comparative analysis with other Caribbean aesthetic Marxists or aesthetic historicists such as CLR James, Nicolás Guillén, and Kamau Brathwaite. (shrink)