ENROLL

Eddie E O'Byrn

This course examines the work of a major theorist in the Black intellectual tradition within the last seventy years. Students are invited to take a dedicated dive into primary scholarship by focusing on a figure such as bell hooks, Derrick Bell, Angela Davis, Charles Mills, Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson, Maya Angelou, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and/or Cornel West. Students should expect an opportunity to examine primary scholarship and build analytical skills to trace themes and methods. This year's focus will be on ethical, social, and political theory of bell hooks (1952 - 2021).

Eddie E O'Byrn

The struggle of freedom against forms of alienation is both a historical and contemporary characteristic of Black/African-American philosophy. In this course we will explore how a variety of Black/African-American philosophers theorize these concepts. The aim of the course is to both offer resources for familiarizing students with African-American philosophers and develop an appreciation for critical philosophical voices in the Black intellectual tradition. The course will range from slave narratives, reconstruction, and civil rights to contemporary prison abolitionism, intersectionality, and afro-pessimism. The texts of the course will include: Angela Davis’ Lectures on Liberation, Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells Southern Horrors, George Yancy’s African-American Philosophers 17 Conversations, and Afro-Pessimism: An Introduction. As well as select articles from historical and contemporary Black/African-American philosophers.