Unfinished Projects: Decolonization and the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre

Description

In this major new reading of Sartre’s life and work, Paige Arthur traces the relationship between the philosopher’s decades-long commitment to decolonization and his intellectual positions. Where other commentators have focused on the tensions between Sartre’s Marxism and his account of existential freedom, usually to denigrate one in favor of the other, Arthur shows how Sartre’s political engagement with global liberation movements and his philosophical framework developed alongside one another. Closely following the postwar movements for decolonization, and then supporting the war of independence in Algeria, Sartre proposed an influential and uncompromising view of imperialism. Analyzing the Western attitude to the ‘subhuman’ colonial subject, he offered an account of the social constraints that applied to both ruler and ruled, and came to argue that political violence—on both sides—was a systematic consequence of the colonial order. Arthur’s rich and nuanced book locates Sartre within the political discussions of his time, whilst also looking forward to contemporary debates about new forms of imperialism and resistance. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Sartre, the Intellectual left, and the Emergence of the "Cultural" other Part I Politicization: Sartre and Postwar Anticolonialism, 1945-1954 1 Putting Constraints on Freedom: A Philosophy of Marginal Groups 2 African Presence: Sartre on US and Colonial Racism in the Late 1940s 3 From Gide to Sartre: The Practice of Anticolonialism Part II Sartre and the Ends of Anticolonialism, 1954-1962 4 Toward a Theory of Colonialism: Sartre's Engagement with the "Subhuman" 5 Colonialism and the Critique of Dialectical Reason 6 The Aftermath of the Critique: Struggles over the Meanings of Colonialism Part III Far Away, So Close: The Third World, Neocolonialism, and the Ethics of Global Responsibility, 1962-1968 7 The Turn Toward Third Worldism: On the Assassination of Lumumba 8 The Ethics of Global Responsibilty: The 1964 "Rome Lecture" 9 Vietnam and Bolivia: Two Battles, Two Intellectuals Part IV Decolonization on Trial, 1968-1980 10 Sartre, the Left, and Identity in Postcolonial France 11 The Critique of Third Worldism and the Human Rights Turn Conclusion: "He Ran While Dead"-Afterlives of Colonialism and Jean-Paul Sartre Index Blank Page