Afropessimism and Its Others: A discussion between Hortense J. Spillers and Lewis R. Gordon

Afropessimism is one of the leading paradigms of thought in contemporary Africa-American inquiry; in fact, it would appear that in its pervasiveness, it names and comprehends thought movements in this field that run at odds with its own assumptions; this lecture aims to advance a few beginning observations of this mode of interrogation in the interest of taking a systematic look at Afropessimism and some of its conceptual predecessors.

Hortense J. Spillers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

Lewis R. Gordon is professor and head of the Department of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs.

00:00 Opening remarks by Ian Read
06:43 Hortense J. Spillers
10:53 The history and background of Afropessimism
17:47 Slavery and social death
27:00 Post-millenium ideas on Afropessimism
35:15 Questions about Afropessimism
36:41 Moderator Lewis R. Gordon
46:13 The reification of Blackness
53:09 Ontological resistance
58:27 Audience Q&A
1:17:22 Last remarks by Hortense J. Spillers and Lewis R. Gordon
1:21:19 Closing by Ian Read

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