“<i>Black Enlightenment</i> does not excuse or accuse a monolithized ‘West,’ but rather shows how European theory could not acknowledge its transformation by Africa rising. Unusual and meticulous documentation, brilliant textual readings. Highly relevant to our annihilation of white supremacy.”

- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, author of, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present

“Offering careful and close readings of key texts written by eighteenth-century Black thinkers, Surya Parekh decenters Kant and Hume from the Enlightenment to emphasize questions around enslavement, freedom, and subjecthood. This strong and important book will touch and inform many fields in current scholarship around the Black Atlantic and the intellectual history of the Enlightenment and beyond.”

- Laurent Dubois, coauthor of, Freedom Roots: Histories from the Caribbean

In Black Enlightenment Surya Parekh reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject. Parekh examines the works of such Black writers as the free Jamaican Francis Williams (1697–1762), Afro-British thinker Ignatius Sancho (1729?–1780), and Afro-American poet Phillis Wheatley (1753?–1784), placing them alongside those of their white European contemporaries David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). By rethinking the Enlightenment and its canons, Parekh complicates common understandings of the Enlightenment wherein Black subjects could exist only in negation to white subjects. Black Enlightenment points to the anxiety of race in Hume, Kant, and others while showing the importance of Black Enlightenment thought. Parekh prompts us to consider the timeliness of reading Black Enlightenment authors who become “free” in a society hostile to that freedom.
Les mer
Examining the work of Black Enlightenment authors, Surya Parekh reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject.
Acknowledgments  ix Introduction  1 1. Black Enlightenment  23 2. (Dis)Figuring Kant  50 3. The Changing Rhetoric of Race  74 4. The Character of Ignatius Sancho  106 5. Phillis Wheatley’s Providence  131 Notes  153 Bibliography  177 Index  195
Les mer
“Black Enlightenment does not excuse or accuse a monolithized ‘West,’ but rather shows how European theory could not acknowledge its transformation by Africa rising. Unusual and meticulous documentation, brilliant textual readings. Highly relevant to our annihilation of white supremacy.”
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781478020264
Publisert
2023-09-15
Utgiver
Vendor
Duke University Press
Vekt
454 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Forfatter

Biographical note

Surya Parekh is Assistant Professor of English, General Literature, and Rhetoric at Binghamton University and coeditor of Living Translation.