Radical theory, Caribbean reality : race, class and social domination / Charles W. Mills.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mills, Charles W. (Charles Wade)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social structure--Caribbean, English-speaking.

Social structure.

Race--Philosophy.

Race.

Social structure--Philosophy.

Caribbean, English-speaking--Social conditions.

Caribbean, English-speaking.

Caribbean, English-speaking--Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 p.)

Place of Publication:

Kingston, Jamaica : University of the West Indies Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality is a collection of articles written over many years that explores the common themes of race and class in the Caribbean and the attempt to overcome social domination. Beginning with an autobiographical account of how his own philosophical outlook was shaped by the radicalization of the region following the 1968 Rodney riots, Jamaican philosopher Charles Mills looks both at those turbulent times and at their aftermath. The essays examine abstract political theory (Marxism, critical race theory, liberal social contract theory) while also focusing on specific Caribbean ideas, issues and events, such as M.G. Smith's plural society thesis, portrayals of the Jamaican left in popular thrillers, the collapse of the Grenada Revolution, "smadditizin'" as the affirmation of personhood in a racist society and the evolution of Stuart Hall's views on race. As such, they all share a concern with the struggle for a more just social order and are "radically" oriented. The title has a double meaning insofar as it signifies both the application of radical theory to the Caribbean reality, and the ways in which that reality has too often collided with the theory, revealing its inadequacies. As Mills explains, "The overall aim is to elucidate some classic subjects and themes in radical theory, both generally and with local Caribbean application, and to map in the process a trajectory of intellectual development not peculiar to my own history but traced by many others of my generation also." Book jacket.

Contents:

Red shift: politically embodied / embodied politics

"Ideology" in Marx and Engels

Determination and consciousness in Marx

Race and class: conflicting or reconcilable paradigms?

Red menace to the green island: the "Communist threat" to Jamaica in genre fiction, 1955-1969

Getting out of the cave: tensions between democracy and elitism in Marx's theory of cognitive liberation

Smadditzin"

Stuart Hall's changing representation of "race"

Symposium on "The racial contract."

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-4619-0675-X

OCLC:

759207752