Description
Book SynopsisFrom American Empire to América Cósmica through Philosophy: Prospero's Reflection envisions a greater ideal American philosophy that integrates philosophies from across the Americas and is set to work resolving the problems that vex the peoples of the Americas. This work contributes to the rapidly growing dialogue on Inter-American philosophy with research that adds to the list of philosophical affinities across the Americas. However, Terrance MacMullan also delves deeply into the points of philosophical contention and misrecognition between Anglo-American and Ibero-American philosophies by reversing the colonial gaze of the last centuries. Following in the tradition of cultural theorists like Enrique Rodó and Roberto Fernández Retamar, who draw on Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a source of literary metaphors to understand colonialism and imperialism in the Americas, MacMullan argues that the United States will never achieve democratic community unless it first contends with the harsh critiques of its culture and philosophies reflected within the works of Latin American philosophers who prophesied and survived the imperialism of the North American Prospero but whose works are still largely unknown and unseen within U.S. universities.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Inter-American Philosophy and the Hope for a Greater America
Part I: Perils and Possibilities of Inter-American Philosophy
Chapter 1: Prospero’s Reflection
Chapter 2: Inter-American Philosophic Unity as Fact, Propaganda, or Legitimate Aspiration
Chapter 3: Inter-American Philosophical Affinities in the 19th Century
Chapter 4: Early Pragmatist Affinities within Inter-American Philosophy
Part II: Inter-American Philosophy as Resistance to Propaganda
Chapter 5: The Stars and Stripes over Plaza de las Armas
Chapter 6: Scrying Prospero’s Empire: Inter-American Philosophy and Imperial Propaganda
Chapter 7: Confronting the Seven League Giant: Martí and Rodó on Inter-American Philosophy as Resistance to Propaganda
Chapter 8: José Vasconcelos and Pragmatism as Gunship Philosophy
Chapter 9: Pedro Albizu Campos as the Socratic Gadfly of American Empire
Part III: Inter-American Philosophy as a Legitimate Aspiration
Chapter 10: Gloria Anzaldua and Confronting the Gringo Doppelganger
Chapter 11: Juan Bautista Alberdi and Inter-American Philosophical Responses to el Caudillo Gringo
Chapter 12: The American Redoubt and the Coyolxauqui Imperative: Remembering América through Inter-American Philosophy
