History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China

The life and career of Malcolm X up to 1963, with a focus on his separatist black nationalism and his critique of non-violent protest.

An interview about the role of the emotions, including anger and feelings of dignity, with MLK expert Meena Krishnamurthy.

The story of Martin Luther King Jr. up to 1963, focusing on the development of his philosophy of nonviolence.

In "The Fire Next Time" and other writings, the essayist and novelist James Baldwin seeks to dispel the illusions surrounding racial and sexual difference.

Ralph Ellison provides a new metaphor for the experience of racism in his Invisible Man and tackles topics of art and identity in his essays.

Famous for his incendiary novel Native Son, Richard Wright responds in his multifaceted writings to sociology, communism, colonialism, and existentialism.

Interview guest Carole Boyce Davies joins us to talk about the radical ideas of Claudia Jones. 

Claudia Jones argues that Communism provides the remedy for racism and imperialism.

Two Trinidadian political thinkers: sociologist Oliver Cox analyzes the nature of racial prejudice, and historian Eric Williams connects capitalism to slavery.

The Trinidadian historian and cultural critic C.L.R. James applies Marxist analysis to the Haitian Revolution, American cinema, and Shakespeare.

Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier critiques the Harlem Renaissance and the “black bourgeoisie” for failing to embrace values that will empower black Americans.

Negritude thinkers Aimé and Suzanne Césaire embrace surrealism and reflect on the relationships between poetry, knowledge, and identity.

Leopold Senghor compares different ways of knowing while developing his theory of Negritude and combining the roles of poet and politician.  

Our first look at the emergence of the Negritude movement in Paris in the 1930s, with a focus on the early leadership of the Nardal sisters and Leon Damas.

Guest Liam Kofi Bright discusses Du Bois' ideal of value-free science and the place of science within his wider thought.

Du Bois moves to the left, and revisits and refines older positions during the latter half of his very long life.

The career of the multi-talented activist and performer Paul Robeson, and the place of the Negro spiritual in the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Neale Hurston’s interest in Africana folklore feeds into her great novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Pioneering historian Carter G. Woodson argues for a new approach to education and economic uplift.

From the latter half of the nineteenth century to the 1970s, African Americans only rarely obtain jobs as philosophy professors but bring distinctive perspectives to the profession.

Leonard Harris explains how Locke's value theory was the basis for his aesthetics and theories of democracy and race. 

The aesthetics of Alain Locke and its basis in his theory of value judgments.

The artistic flowering of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance raises important questions about identity and the purpose of art.

An interview with Michael Dawson, who explains Marcus Garvey's black nationalism and how this and other political ideologies, like socialism and liberalism, have fared from the time of Garvey down to the present day.

Marcus Garvey’s two wives, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, establish themselves as activists in their own right and bring feminism into the Pan-African movement.