Decolonizing American Philosophy

Description

In Decolonizing American Philosophy, Corey McCall and Phillip McReynolds bring together leading scholars at the forefront of the field to ask: Can American philosophy, as the product of a colonial enterprise, be decolonized? Does American philosophy offer tools for decolonial projects? What might it mean to decolonize American philosophy and, at the same time, is it possible to consider American philosophy, broadly construed, as a part of a decolonizing project? The various perspectives included here contribute to long-simmering conversations about the scope, purpose, and future of American philosophy, while also demonstrating that it is far from a unified, homogeneous field. In drawing connections among various philosophical traditions in and of the Americas, they collectively propose that the process of decolonization is not only something that needs to be done to American philosophy but also that it is something American philosophy already does, or at least can do, as a resource for resisting colonial and racist oppression. Contents Introduction Notes Part One: The Terms of Decolonization Chapter 1 Culture, Acquisitiveness, and Decolonial Philosophy Colonial Acquisitiveness and Imperialism Decolonization Shedding Colonial Baggage Notes Chapter 2 Without Land, Decolonizing American Philosophy Is Impossible A Note about Land Indigenous Decolonizing Traditions Land and Decolonization Today The Settler Structure of American Philosophy Conclusion: Without Land, No Decolonization Notes Chapter 3 Decolonizing the West Place and Project Limits and Possibilities in the Decolony Sounds of Worldmaking Deprojecting the West Notes Part Two: Decolonizing the American Canon Chapter 4 Enlightened Readers: Thomas Jefferson, Immanuel Kant, Jorge Juan, and Antonio de Ulloa We Are What We Read Jefferson: The Father and Librarian of the New Republic The Science of Liberty: Juan and Ulloa’s Reporting on the Conditions of the Spanish Colonies Kant’s (Un)critical Reading Conclusion: On the Generosity of the Reader Notes Chapter 5 Writing Loss: On Emerson, Du Bois, and America The First-Person Political: American Genealogies, Heroic Representation, and the Question of Decolonization Two Scenes of Loss: How Emerson and Du Bois Represent the Experience of Grief and the Idea of America Conclusion: A Politics of Loss? Note Chapter 6 Latina Feminist Engagements with US Pragmatism: Interrogating Identity, Realism, and Representation Latina Feminist Engagement with US Pragmatism Latina Feminist Decolonial Theorizing Notes Chapter 7 Dewey, Wynter, and Césaire: Race, Colonialism, and “The Science of the Word” Pragmatism’s Colonial Legacy Notes Part Three: Expanding the American Canon Chapter 8 The Social Ontology of Care among Filipina Dependency Workers: Kittay, Addams, and a Transnational Doulia Ethics of Care Examining the Social Role of the Doulia Principle Addams and the Social Ethics of Dependency Affectionate Interpretation and Sympathetic Understanding as a Public Ethos of Care Affectionate Interpretation as a Transnational Public Ethos of Care Toward a Transnational Doulia Principle: Making Visible Transnational Responsibilities Notes Chapter 9 Creolization and Playful Sabotage at the Brink of Politics in Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance Creolization as Bricolage Creolization as a Liminal Dialectic Creolization as Carnival/Play Dancing the Dragon on the Brink of Politics Concluding Remarks Notes Chapter 10 Decolonizing Mariátegui as a Prelude to Decolonizing Latin American Philosophy The Genealogy of Mariátegui’s Thought: Sorelian Marxism and Peruvian Indigenism Decolonizing Strategies and Tools in Mariátegui’s Works Reading Mariátegui through a Decolonial Lens Achieving and Transcending Mariátegui’s Decolonial Project Conclusion Notes Chapter 11 Distal versus Proximal: Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited as a Proximal Epistemology Background Value of Knowledge Distal versus Proximal Thurman’s Framework and Method of Interrogation Thurman’s Interrogation of the Perceptual Framework Conclusion Notes Contributors Index