Afropessimism

A seminal work that combines ground-breaking philosophy with searing flights of memoir, Afropessimism presents the tenets of an increasingly influential intellectual movement that theorises blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Rather than interpreting slavery through a Marxist framework of class oppression, Frank B. Wilderson III, demonstrates that the social construct of slavery is hardly a relic of the past but an almost necessary force in our civilisation that flourishes today, and that Black struggles cannot be conflated with the experiences of any other oppressed group. In mellifluous prose, he juxtaposes his seemingly idyllic Minneapolis upbringing with the harshness later encountered, whether in Berkeley or Soweto. Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit.

About the author

Professor and chair of African American studies at the University of California, Irvine, and award-winning author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, Frank B. Wilderson III lives in Irvine, California.

Summary

Afropessimism is an unparalleled account of the non-analogous experience of being Black.

Product details

• Authors: Frank Wilderson, Frank B. Wilderson, Frank B. (University of California Wilderson, Frank Wilderson III
• Publisher: Norton and Co Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9781631496141
• ISBN: 978-1-63149-614-1
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 230 mm x 30 mm
• Series: Liveright
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book; Ethnic Studies, Biography / Autobiography, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Educators, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / African American & Black