In this contemporary classic, Lewis Gordon presents his iconic, detailed existential phenomenological investigation of antiblack racism as a form of Sartrean bad faith. Bad faith, the attitude in which human beings attempt to evade freedom and responsibility, is treated as a constant possibility of human existence. Antiblack racism, the attitude and practice that involves the construction of black people as fundamentally inferior and subhuman, is examined as an effort to evade the responsibilities of a human and humane world. Gordon argues that the concept of bad faith militates against any human science that is built upon a theory of human nature and as such offers an analysis of antiblack racism that stands as a challenge to our ordinary assumptions of what it means to be human.
A foundational text in black existentialism, this 30th anniversary edition includes a substantial introduction by Mabogo Moreto address the ongoing importance of Gordons thought in critiquing and resisting racist bad faith in our contemporary moment.
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This is the 30th Anniversary Edition of Lewis R. Gordons classic existential phenomenological inaugural work, Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism. Gordon argues that antiblack racism is an effort to evade the responsibilities of building a human and humane world. He explores how bad faith is manifested across race, gender, and class, among varieties of other human phenomena. The new edition contains a foreword by Mabogo P. More and afterwords by Jacqueline M. Martinez and Paget Henry.
Prefaceby Lewis Gordon
Introduction by Mabogo P. More
Introduction: Why Bad Faith?
Part 1: Bad Faith
A "Determined" Attitude That Involves Lying to Ourselves
The Irony of Belief
Anguish
The Elusiveness of Transcendence and the Comfort of Facticity
What Am I to Me?
Taking Ourselves Too Seriously
The Body in Bad Faith
"Strong" and "Weak" Bad Faith
Some Critical Remarks
How Is Bad Faith Possible?
The Question of Authenticity
Part 2: Logic of Racism, Racist Logic
A Recent Theory
Racialism, Racism, Racialists, and Racists
Affective Dimensions of Racism and Race
Part 3: Antiblack Racism
Racism and Antiblack Racism
White and Black Bodies in Bad Faith
Black Antiblackness in an Antiblack World
Exoticism: Antiblackness Under the Guise of Love
Effeminacy: The Quality of Black Beings
Antiblack Racism and Ontology
Part 4: "God" in an Antiblack World
An Antiblack Cosmogony
"Is God a White Racist?"
The White God and the Black Sufferer
Ultimate Desire and Authenticity in an Antiblack World
To Be Black, Faithful, and Suffering
Part 5: Critical Encounters
"I-Thou"
Ethical Concerns
Deconstruction
Marxism
Conclusion: The Living Dead
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Lewis R. Gordon is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Global Affairs and head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Connecticut. He lectures and is involved in political and artistic projects across the globe and holds appointments at universities and institutes in Senegal, South Africa, Jamaica, India, and France. He is also honorary president of the Global Center for Advanced Studies, distinguished scholar at The Most Honourable PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
