Monday 11 July 2011

Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought

by Lewis Gordon

The intellectual history of the last quarter of the 20th 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. This book presents an introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and aims to help define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon introduces and discusses Africana existential thought for a general audience, covering a range of both classic and contemporary thinkers - from Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois to Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis and Naomi Zack.

 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

Click here to download this book in pdf.