1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910269349103321

Autore

Warren Calvin L. <1980->

Titolo

Ontological terror : Blackness, nihilism, and emancipation / / Calvin L. Warren

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Durham, : Duke University Press, 2018

Durham : , : Duke University Press, , 2018

ISBN

9781478090335

1478090332

9780822370727

0822370727

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 220 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

305.8

Soggetti

Race - Political aspects

Racism

Race awareness

Black people - Race identity

Nihilism (Philosophy)

Ontology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The question of Black being -- Outlawing -- Scientific horror -- Catachrestic fantasies.

Sommario/riassunto

In Ontological Terror Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the "Negro question" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all



humanism is based on investing blackness with nonbeing - a logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks - Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being.