Rhetorical Theory and Criticism: Rhetorical Theory – Contemporary Black Thought

This seminar considers contemporary black thought as a substantial critique of Western modernity, and as a source of social and epistemological alternative. Central to our discussions will be the field’s ontological turn, approached by way of a number of thinkers—Saidiya Hartman, Frank Wilderson, Fred Moten, and Nahum Chandler, among them. We will also trace key ideas currently circulating in black critical thought back to forerunners such as Hortense Spillers, Cedric Robinson and W.E.B. Du Bois. Our enquiries will devote time to specifically rhetorical and aesthetic responses to the challenges that these contemporary renderings of blackness pose.