Black ExistentialismS: Situating Black Existential Philosophy

February 15, 2013

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2012

Send Submissions and Inquiries to hailej1@duq.edu

Celebrating the diversity of understandings, explanations, and explorations into the meaning of blackness within cultural, political, philosophical, and aesthetic life, Duquesne University in conjunction with the Black Aesthetics and Politics series invites participants from a wide range of disciplines and mediums to this year’s topic, Black ExistentialismS: Situating Black Existential Philosophy.

Featuring:

Ytasha Womack author of Post‐Black: How a Generation is

Redefining African American Identity

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko of The Philadiction Movement

Staycee Pearl of Staycee Pearl Dance Project
 

Existentialism is a theory on the meaning of the being of human being. Black existentialism is a theory on the meaning of the being of blackness. Blackness, like being, has a myriad of understanding, explanations,
and explorations. Celebrating the diversity of understandings, explanations, and explorations into the meaning of blackness within cultural, political, philosophical, and aesthetic life, Duquesne University in conjunction with the Black Aesthetics and Politics series invites participants from a wide range of disciplines and mediums to this year’s topic, Black ExistentialismS: Situating Black Existential Philosophy. This
year’s conference focuses the different experiences and differential histories and different existentialisms throughout the Diaspora. What are those aspects of living that influence who we are, what we are, and our world? While geography or place has become a critical aspect of much of existential philosophy, we have yet to fully acknowledge and incorporate it in the creation of knowledge and the construction of world and identity for black existentialism. Black ExistentialismS asks whether place is significant in the construction of race identity, or if the experience of race is ubiquitous throughout the world. This conference seeks to provide multi‐dimensional aural and intellectual encounters and experiences ranging from innovative paper presentations to poetry to monologue, to music to photography and installation and stage art as a means of expressing black existentialisms. We are interested in the development of differential accounting of the meaning and experiences of being black; through articulating our differences we come to appreciate our
deeper similarities. Our last two conferences have featured documentary filmmaker M.K. Asante, in 2010 and a live, onstage dance and music performance in 2012. We want to continue this tradition. We encourage creative usage of space and theme to help think, or re‐think the meaning of blackness.

Themes and/or topics
include, but are not limited to:

Philosophical foundations for black existentialisms

History of black existentialism

Black American existentialism

African existentialism

Caribbean existentialism

Indigenous black existentialism

Comparative black existentialisms

Black Futurism

Black visual arts

Black being (ontology)

Black being‐in‐the‐world

Black Phenomenology and existentialisms

Black existentialisms in literature

Black existentialisms in value theory

Black existentialisms and feminism

Black existentialisms and womanism

Black existentialisms in black political theory

Black existentialisms and black aesthetic theory

Black existentialisms and contemporary black culture (e.g.
hip‐hop,
film, etc.)

Black existentialisms and post‐blackness

Black existentialism and post‐humanism

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2012

Send Submissions and Inquiries to hailej1@duq.edu