Afro-pessimism and Its Kin

As an intellectual project, Afro-pessimism has developed an interpretation of the unique position of black people within a world they say the transatlantic slave trade and anti-black racial solidarity has made. Through close reading, this seminar will begin by critically engaging the core texts of Afro-pessimism, move on to contextualize its central claims about black ontology, social death, civil society, and the world within its canon (e.g. Saidiya Hartman, Orlando Patterson, Hortense Spillers and so on) and critically engage an ever-expanding scholarship that takes up, expands, and contests the Afro-pessimist project (e.g. Fred Moten, Christina Sharpe and so on).