Bøger i African American Philosophy and the African Diaspora serien

Alain Locke is most known for his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance. However, he received his PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1918, and produced a very large corpus of philosophical work. His work shows him to have been a sophisticated philosopher who thought through practical and theoretical problems regarding the nature of cosmopolitanism, democracy, race, value, religion, art, and education. Although Locke's philosophical work has been discussed in parts, there has been no theorizing about how his different philosophical commitments fit together. In this book Corey L. Barnes begins to systematize Locke's philosophical thought, showing how his democratic theory, philosophy of race, and value theory are connected to and undergirded by a commitment to cosmopolitanism. In so doing, Barnes unearths aspects of Locke's thought-for example, his economic thinking-that have not been accorded attention and reimagines parts of his work about which have been theorized, all while bringing Locke into current debates about each subject.

This book interrogates the nature and state of African American citizenship through the prism of Social Contract Theory. Challenging the United States' commitment to African American citizenship, this book explores the idea of Social Nullification, the decision to reject, revoke and re-define the social contract with a state and society.

Cultural idealism in various forms has become enormously influential as a framework for Black studies. In turn, Ferguson argues for the centrality of the Black working class-both men and women-to Black Studies.

Locke offers a prescient vision of the intersection of the three Americas: Latin (South) America, the Caribbean, and North America.