The Cornel West reader / Cornel West.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

West, Cornel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

West, Cornel.

African Americans--Intellectual life.

African Americans.

African American intellectuals.

West, Cornel--Political and social views.

African Americans--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

Philosophy.

Political and social views.

United States--Politics and government--1989---Philosophy.

United States.

Progressivism (United States politics).

United States--Civilization--Philosophy.

Civilization.

African Americans--Religion.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

Physical Description:

604 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Basic Civitas Books, [1999]

Summary:

The Cornel West Reader explores the development of West's singular career as teacher, public intellectual and activist. It features the extraordinary range of his voice, from an early foray into autobiographical fiction to scholarly work on philosophical subjects close to his heart. Candid interviews with people such as bell hooks and Bill Moyers reveal West's views on a range of timely subjects including the meaning and value of intellectual work, black-brown relations and black sexuality.

Cornel West's writing ultimately confronts our existential quest for meaning and our political struggle for freedom. In his essays, articles, books and interviews, West emerges as America's social conscience, urging attention to complicated issues of racial and economic justice, sexuality and gender, history and politics. The Cornel West Reader represents the best work of an always compelling, often controversial and absolutely essential philosopher of the American experience, modernity and the human condition.

Contents:

Introduction: To Be Human, Modern and American xv

I Autobiographical Prelude

1 The Making of an American Radical Democrat of African Descent 3

2 On My Intellectual Vocation 19

3 Sing a Song 34

II Modernity and Its Discontents

4 The Ignoble Paradox of Modernity 51

5 Race and Modernity 55

6 Black Strivings in a Twilight Civilization 87

7 The New Cultural Politics of Difference 119

III American Pragmatism

8 Why Pragmatism? 143

9 On Prophetic Pragmatism 149

10 Pragmatism and the Sense of the Tragic 174

11 The Limits of Neopragmatism 183

12 Nietzsche's Prefiguration of Postmodern American Philosophy 188

IV Progressive Marxist Theory

13 The Indispensability Yet Insufficiency of Marxist Theory 213

14 Fredric Jameson's American Marxism 231

15 Race and Social Theory 251

V Radical Democratic Politics

16 The Role of Law in Progressive Politics 269

17 The Political Intellectual 278

18 A World of Ideas 294

19 The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual 302

20 American Progressivism Reoriented 316

21 Parents and National Survival 333

22 On the 1980s 344

23 Michael Harrington, Democratic Socialist 348

VI Prophetic Christian Thought

24 The Crisis in Contemporary American Religion 357

25 The Historicist Turn in Philosophy of Religion 360

26 Religion and the Left 372

27 On Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her 380

28 On Leszek Kolakowski 387

29 On Liberation Theology: Segundo and Hinkelammert 393

30 Christian Love and Heterosexism 401

31 A Philosophical View of Easter 415

32 On Gibson Winter's Ecological Ecumenism 421

33 Prophetic Christian as Organic Intellectual: Martin Luther King, Jr. 425

34 Subversive Joy and Revolutionary Patience in Black Christianity 435

VII The Arts

35 Critical Reflections on Art 443

36 Horace Pippin's Challenge to Art Criticism 447

37 Race and Architecture 456

38 The Spirituals as Lyrical Poetry 463

39 In Memory of Marvin Gaye 471

40 On Afro-American Music: From Bebop to Rap 474

41 On Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror 485

42 On Walt Whitman 489

VIII Race and Difference

43 On Affirmative Action 495

44 On Black-Brown Relations 499

45 On Black Sexuality 514

46 On Black Nationalism 521

47 Tensions with Jewish Friends and Foes 530

48 On Jackie Robinson 536

49 On Julianne Malveaux 539

50 Conversation with bell hooks 541

51 Chekhov, Coltrane and Democracy 551.

ISBN:

0465091091

OCLC:

42706265