Black Existentialism

A discussion of Richard Wright's short story "The Man Who Lived Underground," which explores themes of visibility, invisibility, life, freedom, and death. In this process piece, I think through the meaning of the underground as invisibility and freedom - with reference to Ralph Ellison's treatment of invisibility in Invisible Man - and the above ground as visibility, exposure to antiblack racism, and death.

What is Black Existentialism?

Podcasted process pieces from my course Black Existentialism. The course introduces one of the most important and potent mid-century intellectual movements - the existentialist movement - through a series of black Atlantic thinkers. Our keystone will be Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, which is arguably the most important work of Black existentialism from this period. Across the semester we will see why existentialism, with its focus on the ambiguities and ambivalences of lived-experience, had such a deep impact on Black thinkers across the diaspora. We will see these existentialist insights register in literature, philosophy, and film. Old and new.