CFCP Public Lecture: Myisha Cherry

Myisha Cherry of the University of California at Riverside will join us for the CFCP’s public lecture, on the topic of “On James Baldwin and Black Rage”.

Abstract

What I aim to elucidate in this talk is Baldwin’s moral psychology of anger in general, and black rage in particular, as seen in his nonfiction. I’ll show that Baldwin’s thinking is significant for moral psychology and is relevant to important questions at the intersection of philosophy of emotion, race, and social philosophy. It also has pragmatic application to present-day anti-racist struggle. Baldwin’s theoretical account of Black rage, I’ll argue, (1) dignifies Blacks by centering them as people with agential capacities and (2) provides them with a pragmatic politics of rage that is useful in the fight against white supremacy and racial injustice.

Cherry’s lecture will be held in WPH B27.