Description
Book SynopsisBlack is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject.
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments vii
1 Assembly, Not Birth 1
1 Introduction 1
2 Inquiry and Assembly 3
3 On Blackness 6
4 On the Black Aesthetic Tradition 12
5 Black Aesthetics as/and Philosophy 19
6 Conclusion 26
2 No Negroes in Connecticut: Seers, Seen 32
1 Introduction 33
2 Setting the Stage: Blacking Up Zoe 35
3 Theorizing the (In)visible 36
4 Theorizing Visuality 43
5 Two Varieties of Black Invisibility: Presence and Personhood 48
6 From Persons to Characters: A Detour 51
7 Two More Varieties of Black Invisibility: Perspectives and Plurality 58
8 Unseeing Nina Simone 63
9 Conclusion: Phronesis and Power 69
3 Beauty to Set the World Right: The Politics of Black Aesthetics 77
1 Introduction 77
2 Blackness and the Political 80
3 Politics and Aesthetics 83
4 The Politics–Aesthetics Nexus in Black; or, "The Black Nation: A Garvey Production" 85
5 Autonomy and Separatism 87
6 Propaganda, Truth, and Art 88
7 What is Life but Life? Reading Du Bois 91
8 Apostles of Truth and Right 94
9 On "Propaganda" 98
10 Conclusion 99
4 Dark Lovely Yet And; Or, How To Love Black Bodies While Hating Black People 104
1 Introduction 105
2 Circumscribing the Topic: Definitions and Distinctions 107
3 Circumscribing the Topic, cont'd: Context and Scope 109
4 The Cases 110
5 Reading the Cases 115
6 Conclusion 129
5 Roots and Routes: Disarming Authenticity 132
1 Introduction 132
2 An Easy Case: The Germans in Yorubaland 134
3 A Harder Case: Kente Capers 136
4 Varieties of Authenticity 138
5 From Exegesis to Ethics 144
6 The Kente Case, Revisited 151
6 Make It Funky; Or, Music's Cognitive Travels and the Despotism of Rhythm 155
1 Introduction 156
2 Beyond the How]Possible: Kivy's Questions 157
3 Stimulus, Culture, Race 159
4 Preliminaries: Rhythm, Brains, and Race Music 162
5 The Flaw in the Funk 168
6 (Soul) Power to the People 172
7 Funky White Boys and Honorary Soul Sisters 174
8 Conclusion 177
7 Conclusion: "It Sucks That I Robbed You"; Or, Ambivalence,
Appropriation, Joy, Pain 182
Index 186
