Black philosopher, white academy : the career of William Fontaine / Bruce Kuklick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kuklick, Bruce, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fontaine, William, 1909-1968.

Fontaine, William.

University of Pennsylvania. Faculty--Biography.

University of Pennsylvania.

African American educators--Biography.

African American educators.

Philosophy teachers--United States--Biography.

Philosophy teachers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

At a time when almost all African American college students attended black colleges, philosopher William Fontaine was the only black member of the University of Pennsylvania faculty-and quite possibly the only black member of any faculty in the Ivy League. Little is known about Fontaine, but his predicament was common to African American professionals and intellectuals at a critical time in the history of civil rights and race relations in the United States.Black Philosopher, White Academy is at once a biographical sketch of a man caught up in the issues and the dilemmas of race in the middle of the last century; a portrait of a salient aspect of academic life then; and an intellectual history of a period in African American life and letters, the discipline of philosophy, and the American academy. It is also a meditation on the sources available to a practicing historian and, frustratingly, the sources that are not. Bruce Kuklick stays close to the slim packet of evidence left on Fontaine's life and career but also strains against its limitations to extract the largest possible insights into the life of the elusive Fontaine.

Contents:

A cultured education

A student of philosophy

Ambition constrained

The sociology of knowledge

Social change and World War II

The ambiguity of success

Social philosophy and civil rights

Conservative pan-Africanism

White racism and black power.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [137]-159) and index.

"Bibliography of the writings of William Fontaine": p. [161]-163.

ISBN:

9786613212344

9781283212342

128321234X

9780812205411

0812205413

OCLC:

759158161