History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

After Albert Cleage and James Cone propose a liberatory interpretation of Christianity, William R. Jones wonders whether God is a white racist. We also follow Black Theology among “Womanist” authors and in South Africa.

African American literature of the late 1960s reflects the Black Power movement, in the works of such authors as Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhubuti, Larry Neal, and Sonia Sanchez.

The controversial career of the Pan-Africanist philosopher Maulana Karenga, inventor of the holiday Kwanzaa.

The philosophical underpinnings of a “vanguard of revolution” led by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver: the Black Panther Party.

How the controversial slogan “black power,” used by activists like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, relates to ideas of militancy, separatism, and the power of language.

The underestimated radicalism of Lorraine Hansberry, author of the famous play "A Raisin in the Sun".

Lewis Gordon, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut and expert on Frantz Fanon, delves into the profound themes of Fanon’s writings. They discuss Negritude, exploring how it serves as a framework for Black identity amidst colonial oppression. The conversation navigates Fanon’s complex views on violence, addressing its paradoxical necessity for resistance. Gordon also highlights Fanon’s significant impact on modern movements, urging a deeper understanding of identity, agency, and the transformative vision of decolonization in today’s sociopolitical landscape.

Fanon’s incendiary final work explores the violent process of decolonization.

Frantz Fanon combines existentialist philosophy and psychiatry to diagnose the condition of the colonialized target of racism.

The first leader of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, writes against neocolonialism and in favor of socialism and Pan-Africanism.