A Companion to African-American Studies (eBook)

Lewis R. Gordon is the Laura Carnell University Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University and Ongoing Visiting Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including Her Majesty's Other Children (1997), which won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for Advancing Human Rights, and Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought (2000). Jane Anna Gordon teaches in the Department of Political Science at Temple University, where she is also an Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought. She is author of Why They Couldn't Wait: A Critique of the Black-Jewish Conflict Over Community Control in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, 1967-1971 (2001), and co-editor, with Lewis R. Gordon, of Not Only the Master's Tools: Theoretical Explorations in African-American Studies (2005).

Notes on Contributors.

Preface and Acknowledgments.

Note on the Text.

Introduction: On Working through a Most Difficult Terrain.(Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon).

Part I: Stones That Former Builders Refused.

1. On My First Acquaintance with Black Studies: A Yale Story.(Houston Baker, Jr.).

2. Sustaining Africology: On the Creation and Development of aDiscipline. (Molefi Kete Asante).

3. Dreams, Nightmares, and Realities: Afro-American Studies atBrown University, 1969-1986. (Rhett Jones).

4. Black Studies in the Whirlwind: A Retrospective View.(Charlotte Morgan-Cato).

5. From the Birth to a Mature Afro-American Studies at Harvard,1969-2002. (Martin Kilson).

6. Black Studies and Ethnic Studies: The Crucible of Knowledgeand Social Action. (Johnnella E. Butler).

7. A Debate on Activism in Black Studies.

(Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Manning Marable).

8. Singing the Challenges: The Arts and Humanities asCollaborative Sites in African American Studies. (HermanBeavers).

9. On How We Mistook the Map for the Territory, andRe-Imprisoned Ourselves in Our Unbearable Wrongness of Being, ofDesêtre: Black Studies Toward the Human Project. (SylviaWynter).

10. The New Auction Block: Blackness and the Marketplace. (HazelV. Carby).

11. Black Studies, Black Professors, and the Struggles ofPerception. (Nell Irvin Painter).

12. Autobiography of an Ex-White Man. (Robert Paul Wolff).

Part II: Such Fertile Fields. . ..

A The Blues Are Brewing . . . for a Humanistic Humanism.

13. Homage to Mistress Wheatley . (Rowan Ricardo Phillips).

14. Toni Cade Bambara's Those Bones Are Not My Child: Placingthe Humanities at the Core of Black Studies. (Joyce Ann Joyce).

15. Jazz Consciousness. (Paul Austerlitz).

B What Does It Mean to Be a Problem?.

16. Afro-American Studies and the Rise of African-AmericanPhilosophy. (Paget Henry).

17. Sociology and the African Diaspora Experience . (TukufuZuberi).

18. Suicide in Black and White: Theories and Statistics. (AlvinPoussaint and Amy Alexander).

19. Some Reflections on Challenges Posed to Social-ScientificMethod by the Study of Race. (Jane Anna Gordon).

20. African-American Queer Studies . (David Ross Fryer).

21. Black Studies, Race, and Critical Race Theory: A NarrativeDeconstruction of Law . (Clevis Headley).

C Having Hitherto Interpreted the World, the Point is to ChangeIt.

22. Unthinkable History?: Some Reflections on the HaitianRevolution, Historiography, and Modernity on the Periphery.(Sibylle Fischer).

23. Historical Consciousness in the Relation of African-AmericanStudies to Modernity. (Stefan M. Wheelock).

24. An Emerging Mosaic: Rewriting Postwar African-AmericanHistory. (Peniel E. Joseph).

25. Reflections on African-American Political Thought: The ManyRivers of Freedom. (B. Anthony Bogues).

26. Politics of Knowledge: Black Policy Professionals in theManagerial Age. (Floyd Hayes, III).

D Not by Bread Alone.

27. From the Nile to the Niger: The Evolution of AfricanSpiritual Concepts. (Charles Finch, III).

28. Three Rival Narratives of Black Religion. (William D.Hart).

29. Babel in the North: Black Migration, Moral Community, andthe Ethics of Racial Authenticity. (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr).

30. Orienting Afro-American Judaism: A Critique of WhiteNormativity in Literature on Black Jews in America. (WalterIsaac).

Part III: Creolization and the Geography of Reason.

31. Playing with the Dark: The Deployment of Blackness andBrownness in the Africana and Latino Literary Imaginations.(Claudia M. Milian Arias).

32. Africana Studies: The International Context and Boundaries.(Anani Dzidzienyo).

33. Africana Thought and African-Diasporic Studies. (Lewis R.Gordon).

Works Cited.

Index.

"An excellent ... resource ... edited with an excellent introduction by Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon, which includes articles by a wide range of scholars that document the development of black studies in the United States and outline the trajectories of the field in all its multi-genre richness." (Year's Work in English Studies, November 2008)

"This compilation of essays is a much-needed addition to
African-American scholarship. The breadth and range of this
collection will make an excellent teaching tool for anyone leading
courses in ethnicity, identity, and racial politics. We are in the
editors' debt for bringing together such excellent and
important essays."

-Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University