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Nathalie Etoke - Black Existential Freedom, Häftad

Häftad, Engelska, 2022

Black Existential Freedom

Av Nathalie Etoke

457 kr

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Beskrivning
The history of slavery, colonization, subjugation, gratuitous violence, and the denial of basic human rights to people of African descent has led Afro-Pessimists to look at black existence through the lens of white supremacy and anti-blackness. Against this trend, Black Existential Freedom argues that Blackness is not inherently synonymous with victimhood. Rather, it is inextricable from existential freedom and the struggle for political liberation.This book presents an existential analysis of continental and diasporic African experiences through critical interpretations of music, film, and fiction that portray what it means to be human— to persevere in the tension between life and physical, psychological, and social death—for the sake of freedom. With its transdisciplinary perspective and convergence of Africana existential philosophy, African-American Studies, Afro-French Studies, Diaspora Studies, and African studies, this book is not concerned with disciplinary boundaries or certain appropriations of European metaphysics that are committed to a reading of black “non-being.” Black Existential Freedom explores the continuities and discontinuities of black existence and the manifestations and the meanings of blackness within different countries, time periods, and social and political contexts. Etoke's book empowers the reader to understand and process the complexities of racialized identity in a globalized contemporary society. Ultimately, it is an ode to human survival and freedom.
Produktinformation
  • Utgivningsdatum: 2022-11-04
  • Mått: 151 x 229 x 14 mm
  • Vikt: 263 g
  • Format: Häftad
  • Språk: Engelska
  • Antal sidor: 170
  • Förlag: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
  • ISBN: 9781538173060
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Nathalie Etoke is associate professor of French and Africana studies at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her book Melancholia Africana received the Frantz Fanon Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. In 2011, she made a documentary entitled Afro Diasporic French Identities thatexamines how the legacy of slavery and colonization challenges the republican ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Recensioner i media

It is tempting to regard the 2020 murder of George Floyd by law enforcement as a contemporary variant of the meaning of Blackness in society, a meaning traceable to slavery, colonialism, and then postcolonialism. In such a case, Blackness translates into a cynical and pessimistic outlook on life for Black people everywhere. Further, some see this pessimism manifested in so-called Black-on-Black violence. It is this very cynical outlook that Etoke challenges here. By analyzing Black people's creative productions—e.g., spirituals during slavery, the freedom songs of the 1960s, contemporary hip-hop and rap music, and Black theatrical performances—Etoke argues, contra the Afro-Pessimists, that Black people have constantly been affirming their humanity and subjectivity, hence optimism, even in the face of white supremacist domination and oppression. Etoke calls attention to oppressive structures specifically in France and the US but generally in the Global North, where the notion of Black citizenship seems like an oxymoron. Even so, Black people have not just been “singing the Blues” and waiting for death, but instead have been articulating forms of resistance and engaging in self-affirmation that bespeaks optimism and existential freedom. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

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