Free eBooks The Racial Discourses Of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, And Modernity (New Directions In Critical Theory) Available To Downloads
In the early twentieth century, the life philosophy of Henri Bergson summoned the élan vital, or vital force, as the source of creative evolution. Bergson also appealed to intuition, which focused on experience rather than discursive thought and scientific cognition. Particularly influential for the literary and political Négritude movement of the 1930s, which opposed French colonialism, Bergson's life philosophy formed an appealing alternative to Western modernity, decried as "mechanical," and set the stage for later developments in postcolonial theory and vitalist discourse. Revisiting narratives on life that were produced in this age of machinery and war, Donna V. Jones shows how Bergson, Nietzsche, and the poets Leopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire 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 shows that 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, which integrates these older discourses into larger critical frameworks, and she traces the ways in which vitalism continues to draw from and contribute to its making.
Series: New Directions in Critical Theory
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Columbia University Press; Reprint edition (December 27, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231145497
ISBN-13: 978-0231145497
Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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The newest addition to the outstanding Columbia University Press 'New Directions in Critical Theory' series, "The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Negritude, Vitalism, and Modernity" by Donna V. Jones (Assistant Professor of English, University of California - Berkeley) focuses on how the philosophy of Henri Bergson and Nietzsche, and the poetry of Leopold Senghor and Aime Cesaire, worked to shape and influence the idea of human life into an aesthetic and metaphysical concept the included considerations of race and nationhood. Of special note is Professor Jones' incorporation into her informed and informative, 231-page study of the dominant literary models into broader contemporary philosophical frameworks. Enhanced with extensive footnotes and a truly comprehensive index, "The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Negritude, Vitalism, and Modernity" is a superbly presented work of seminal scholarship, making it an extraordinary contribution to academic library philosophy and literary analysis collections.
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