Lewis Gordon, Ph.D., on The Fear of Black Consciousness  

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023, from 4-5:30 p.m. in Bethany Hall A, the Africana Studies Program will bring to campus Lewis Gordon, Ph.D., one of the leading scholars working on racism, anti-blackness, and black existentialism, to speak about topics and arguments in his most recent book, Fear of Black Consciousness (2022). In this book, Professor Gordon "takes the reader on a journey through the historical development of racialized Blackness, the problems this kind of consciousness produces, and the many creative responses from Black and non-Black communities in contemporary struggles for dignity and freedom." Gordon also "exposes the bad faith at the heart of many discussions about race and racism not only in America but across the globe, including those who think of themselves as 'color blind.'"

Lewis R. Gordon is a philosopher, political thinker, and educator who achieved his Ph.D. in philosophy with distinction from Yale university and his undergraduate degrees in philosophy and political science. He is Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department at UCONN-Storrs, where he is a core member of the Indigeneity, Intersectionality, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics M.A. Program and Graduate Certificate (IIREP) and has affiliations in Judaic Studies, Caribbean and Latinx Studies, Asian and Asian American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Cognitive Science, and Global Affairs. His visiting appointments include Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica, Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, and Honorary Professor in (UHURU) the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes in South Africa, and adjunct Professor at Fort Hare in East London, South Africa. He is also Distinguished Scholar at The Most Honourable PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy, The University of the West Indies, Mona (2021–).

Professor Gordon’s research includes work in Africana philosophy, philosophy of existence, phenomenology, social and political philosophy, philosophy of culture, race, and racism, aesthetics, philosophy of education, philosophy of science and technology, philosophy of human sciences, Jewish philosophy, global southern philosophy, philosophy of medicine, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, and multidimensional theory. As a public intellectual, Gordon has written for a variety of political forums, newspapers, and magazines, and he has lectured and organized workshops and political meetings across the globe.

His major works include Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Humanities, 1995), which will appear in a revised 2nd edition with a foreword by Mabogo More under the Classics in Humanities Books series in the Rowman & Littlefield International catalog in 2023, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man, whose 2nd edition will be published with commentaries by an international group of scholars under Routledge in 2023, Her Majesty’s Other Children (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997; 2nd edition forthcoming), which won the Gustavus Myer Award for Outstanding work on Human Rights, Existentia Africana (Routledge, 2000), Disciplinary Decadence (Routledge, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge UP, 2008; 2nd edition forthcoming in 2023), What Fanon Said (NY: Fordham UP; London: Hurst Publishers; and Johannesburg: Wits UP, 2015), and, with Jane Anna Gordon, A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006), which was NetLibrary’s e-book of the month in 2007, Not Only the Master’s Tools (Routledge, 2006), Of Divine Warning (Routledge, 2009), and, with Fernanda Bragato Frizzo, Geopolitics and Decolonization (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017). His most recent books are Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, 2021) and Fear of Black Consciousness (hardcover, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022; paperback, NY: Picador, 2023; in the UK, London: Penguin Books, 2022).

Professor Gordon also co-edits, with Jane Anna Gordon and Nelson Maldonado-Torres, the Rowman & Littlefield International book series Global Critical Caribbean Thought, and, with Rozena Maart, Epifania Amoo-Adare, and Sayan Dey, the Routledge India book series Academics, Politics and Society in the Post-Covid World (Routledge India). He also edits, with Jane Anna Gordon, the journal Philosophy and Global Affairs. In 2022, he was the recipient of the Eminent Scholar Award from the Global Development Studies division of the International Studies Association.

Categories: Arts and Culture, Nation and World