I Am Because We Are: Readings in Africana Philosophy / Edition 2

by Fred Lee Hord, Jonathan Scott Lee

Overview

First published in 1995, I Am Because We Are has been recognized as a major, canon-defining anthology and adopted as a text in a wide variety of college and university courses. Bringing together writings by prominent black thinkers from Africa, the Caribbean, and North America, Fred Lee Hord and Jonathan Scott Lee made the case for a tradition of "relational humanism" distinct from the philosophical preoccupations of the West.

Over the past twenty years, however, new scholarly research has uncovered other contributions to the discipline now generally known as "Africana philosophy" that were not included in the original volume. In this revised and expanded edition, Hord and Lee build on the strengths of the earlier anthology while enriching the selection of readings to bring the text into the twenty-first century. In a new introduction, the editors reflect on the key arguments of the book's central thesis, refining them in light of more recent philosophical discourse. This edition includes important new readings by Kwame Gyekye, Oyeronke Oy ewumi­, Paget Henry, Sylvia Wynter, Toni Morrison, Charles Mills, and Tommy Curry, as well as extensive suggestions for further reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625341761
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	04/26/2016
Edition description:	revised edition
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Fred Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) is professor of English and director of Africana studies at Knox College and author of several books, including Reconstructing Memory: Black Literary Criticism. Jonathan Scott Lee is professor of philosophy at Colorado College and author of Jacques Lacan, published by the University of Massachusetts Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments INTRODUCTIONSI Am Because We Are — Twenty Years OnFrederick Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) and Jonathan Scott Lee

I am because we are: An Introduction to Black PhilosophyFrederick Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) and Jonathan Scott Lee

AFRICAIntroduction

The Declarations of Innocence

The Teachings of Ptahhotep

An Interview with H. Odera OrukaPaul Mbuya Akoko

Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth CenturyLéopold Sédar Senghor

ConsciencismKwame Nkrumah

Ujamaa — The Basis of African SocialismJulius K. Nyerere

Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle Amilcar Cabral

White Racism and Black Consciousness Steve Biko

from Myth, Literature, and the African World Wole Soyinka

Feminism and Revolution Awa Thiam

We Are Committed to Building a Single Nation in Our CountryNelson Mandela

Person and Community: In Defense of Moderate CommunitarianismKwame Gyekye

(Re)constituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of ṇ̃y — ̣-Yorùbá: Articulating the Yorùbá World-Sense  Oyéronké Oyewùmi

THE CARIBBEANIntroduction

Africa for the Africans Marcus Garvey

The Future as I See It Marcus Garvey

The Awakening of Race Consciousness among Black Students Paulette Nardal

The West Indian Middle ClassesC. L. R. James

from Discourse on Colonialism Aimé Césaire

Racism and Culture Frantz Fanon

Black Power, a Basic UnderstandingWalter Rodney

The Shadow of the Whip: A Comment on Male-Female Relations in the CaribbeanMerle Hodge

from The Racial ContractCharles W. Mills

The General Character of Afro-Caribbean Philosophy Paget Henry

On How We Mistook the Map for the Territory, and Reimprisoned Ourselves in Our Unbearable Wrongness of Being, of Desêtre: Black Studies Toward the Human Project Sylvia Wynter

Reasoning in Black: Africana Philosophy under the Weight of Misguided ReasonLewis R. Gordon

NORTH AMERICA

Introduction

Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5, 1852Frederick Douglass

The Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in America to AfricaAlexander Crummell

Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a RaceAnna Julia Cooper

The Atlanta Exposition AddressBooker T. Washington

Does Race Antipathy Serve Any Good Purpose? W. E. B. Du Bois

On Being Ashamed of Oneself: An Essay on Race PrideW. E. B. Du Bois

The Concept of RaceW. E. B. Du Bois

The New NegroAlain Locke

Speech on ÒBlack RevolutionÓ (New York, April 8, 1964)Malcolm X

Black PowerMartin Luther King, Jr.

Rootedness: The Ancestor as FoundationToni Morrison

Radical Perspectives on the Empowerment of Afro-American Women: Lessons for the 1980sAngela Y. Davis

Philosophy, Ethnicity, and RaceLucius Outlaw

Feminism: A Transformational Politicbell hooks

Learning to Talk of RaceCornel West

The Black Underclass and Black PhilosophersCornel West

Black Solidarity after Black PowerTommie Shelby

The Eschatological Dilemma: The Problem of Studying the Black Male Only as the Deaths That Result from Anti-Black RacismTommy J. Curry

Selected Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Robert Gooding-Williams

A significant and sure-to-be controversial attempt to demonstrate the existence of a black philosophical tradition.... It makes available a valuable collection of essays that teachers of philosophy and black studies alike will wish to use in their courses.

Editorial Reviews

"An ambitious book [that] strives to be intellectually and philosophically Pan-Africanist. In an era where more than a 'hyphen' has continually separated Africans and African-Americans and others of African descent, the call to relational humanism and community ethos is a timely one."—The International Journal of African Historical Studies

"A significant and sure-to-be controversial attempt to demonstrate the existence of a black philosophical tradition. . . . It makes available a valuable collection of essays that teachers of philosophy and black studies alike will wish to use in their courses."—Robert Gooding-Williams, author of In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America

From the Publisher

An ambitious book [that] strives to be intellectually and philosophically Pan-Africanist. In an era where more than a 'hyphen' has continually separated Africans and African-Americans and others of African descent, the call to relational humanism and community ethos is a timely one.

The International Journal of African Historical Studies