The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy Négritude, Vitalism, and Modernity |
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Author:
| Jones, Donna |
Series title: | New Directions in Critical Theory Ser. |
ISBN: | 978-0-231-14548-0 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2010 |
Publisher: | Columbia University Press
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Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | USD $105.00 |
Book Description:
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Donna V. Jones shows how Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the poets L#65533;opold Senghor and Aim#65533; C#65533;saire fashioned the concept of life into a central aesthetic and metaphysical category, while also implicating it in discourses on race and nation. Jones argues that twentieth-century vitalism cannot be understood separately from these racial and anti-Semitic discussions. She also illustrates how some dominant models of emancipation within black thought become...
More Description
Donna V. Jones shows how Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the poets L#65533;opold Senghor and Aim#65533; C#65533;saire fashioned the concept of life into a central aesthetic and metaphysical category, while also implicating it in discourses on race and nation. Jones argues that twentieth-century vitalism cannot be understood separately from these racial and anti-Semitic discussions. She also illustrates how some dominant models of emancipation within black thought become intelligible only when in dialogue with the vitalist tradition. Jones's study strikes at the core of contemporary critical theory, integrating these older discourses into larger critical frameworks, and she traces the ways in which vitalism continues to draw from and contribute to its making.