Afropessimism, a Conversation between Frank Wilderson III and Bill Hart

The speakers will be available for Q&A online. Frank Wilderson’s new book, AFROPESSMISM fuses innovative philosophy with trenchant memoir to argue that we are still living in the legacy of slavery’s historical social position. Khalil Muhammad, Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, at Harvard, writes: “[Wilderson] is one of the boldest and most unflinching theorists of the indispensability―like oxygen to lungs―of anti-Black violence and racism. And nothing since Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas has haunted me with the sheer terror of truth that Humanity and the world itself are defined by and feed on Black suffering and death.”

Frank Wilderson III grew up in Minneapolis, spent five years in South Africa as an active participant in the anti-apartheid struggle, and is now Chair of African American Studies and Professor in the Culture & Theory Graduate Program at the University of Callifornia-Irvine. His books include Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid and Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms. Frank's writing has been honored with the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Creative Nonfiction and an NEA Literature Fellowship.

Bill Hart is Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College. He researches the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics. His current projects include a theoretical study of anti-blackness and a comparative analysis of human sacrifice in religion and statecraft. Hart teaches courses on religion and colonialism, religion and constructions of race, and humanism and atheism.

This conversation will premiere on ESFL’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.