African-American Humanism

African-American Humanism PDF Author: Norm R. Allen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This collection demonstrates the strong influence that humanism and freethought had in developing the history and ideals of black intellectualism. Most people are quick to note the profound influence that religion has played in African-American history: consoling the downtrodden slave or inspiring the abolitionists, the underground railroad, and the civil rights movement. But few are aware of the role humanism played in shaping the black experience: developing the thought and motivating the actions of powerful African-American intellectuals. Section One of this book offers biographical sketches of such prominent black humanists as Frederick Douglass, Cheikh Anta Diop, W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, and Richard Wright. Section Two features essays by black humanists: Douglass, DuBois, Charles W. Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Jaffree, Claude McKay, Melvin B. Tolson, and Bruce Wright. Section Three offers the views of contemporary black African humanists: Freda Amakye Ansah, Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Nkeonye Otakpor, Franz Vanderpuye, and Kwasi Wiredu. Section Four contains interviews conducted by Allen on the subjects of black humanist activism, the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, and the Harlem Renaissance with: Martin G. Bernal, Charles Faulkner, Leonard Harris, Norman Hill, and Alaine Locke.

African-American Humanism

African-American Humanism PDF Author: Norm R. Allen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection demonstrates the strong influence that humanism and freethought had in developing the history and ideals of black intellectualism. Most people are quick to note the profound influence that religion has played in African-American history: consoling the downtrodden slave or inspiring the abolitionists, the underground railroad, and the civil rights movement. But few are aware of the role humanism played in shaping the black experience: developing the thought and motivating the actions of powerful African-American intellectuals. Section One of this book offers biographical sketches of such prominent black humanists as Frederick Douglass, Cheikh Anta Diop, W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, and Richard Wright. Section Two features essays by black humanists: Douglass, DuBois, Charles W. Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Jaffree, Claude McKay, Melvin B. Tolson, and Bruce Wright. Section Three offers the views of contemporary black African humanists: Freda Amakye Ansah, Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Nkeonye Otakpor, Franz Vanderpuye, and Kwasi Wiredu. Section Four contains interviews conducted by Allen on the subjects of black humanist activism, the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, and the Harlem Renaissance with: Martin G. Bernal, Charles Faulkner, Leonard Harris, Norman Hill, and Alaine Locke.

Reviving the Children of Nimrod

Reviving the Children of Nimrod PDF Author: A. Pinn
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349733245
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
As Anthony Pinn argues in his latest collection, humanism comes in many colors. When more attention is given to issues of race as connected to other forms of oppression, it is easier to see the manner in which humanism has lived and functioned within African American communities. Using the biblical figure Nimrod as symbol, African American Humanist Principles demonstrates African American humanists' intellectual and praxis-related grounding in a history of rebellion against over-determined and oppressive limitations on human doing and being. Pinn maintains that it is this quest for a fuller sense of being - for greater existential and ontological worth - that informs the basic principles of African American humanism. African American Humanist Principles is one of the only books to present the inner workings of humanist principles as the foundation for humanism from the African American perspective - its form and content, nature and meaning.

By These Hands

By These Hands PDF Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814766722
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This anthology focuses attention on the role of humanism in African American liberation struggles. The influence of humanist thought on prominent figures is emphasized, as is its impact on the Abolitionist, civil rights, and Black Power movements. Twenty-one chapters discuss history, culture, politics, personal accounts, and observations from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They include writings by Duchess Harris, Herbert Aptheker, Daniel Payne, Norm Allen, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Huey Newton. c. Book News Inc.

The Origins of Black Humanism in America

The Origins of Black Humanism in America PDF Author: J. Floyd-Thomas
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230615821
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
By examining the minister who helped inspire the founding of the Harlem Unitarian Church Reverend Ethelred Brown, Floyd-Thomas offers a provocative examination of the religious and intellectual roots of Black humanist thought.

Race Matters, Animal Matters

Race Matters, Animal Matters PDF Author: Lindgren Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317356446
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Race Matters, Animal Matters challenges one of the grand narratives of African American studies: that African Americans rejected racist associations of blackness and animality through a disassociation from animality. Analyzing canonical texts written by Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Ida B. Wells, and James Weldon Johnson alongside slaughterhouse lithographs, hunting photography, and sheep “husbandry” manuals, Lindgren Johnson argues instead for a critical African American tradition that at pivotal moments reconsiders and recuperates discourses of animality weaponized against both African Americans and animals. Johnson articulates a theory of “fugitive humanism” in which these texts fl ee both white and human exceptionalism, even as they move within and seek out a (revised) humanist space. The focus, for example, is not on how African Americans shake off animal associations in demanding recognition of their humanity, but on how they hold fast to animality and animals in making such a move, revising “the human” itself as they go and undermining the binaries that helped to produce racial and animal injustices. Fugitive humanism reveals how an interspecies ethics develops in these African American responses to violent dehumanization. Illuminating those moments in which the African American canon exceeds human exceptionalism, Race Matters, Animal Matters ultimately shows how these black engagements with animals and animality are not subsequent to efforts for racial justice — a mere extension of the abolitionist or antilynching movements— but, to the contrary, are integral to those efforts. This black- authored temporality challenges widely accepted humanist approaches to the relationship between racial and animal justice as it anticipates and even critiques the valuable insights that animal studies and posthumanism have to offer in our current moment.

The Black Humanist Experience

The Black Humanist Experience PDF Author: Norm R. Allen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
The first book dedicated entirely to humanists of African descent, The Black Humanist Experience gives African American humanists the opportunity to discuss their reasons for leaving the religious fold and embracing a humanist life stance. As a minority within a minority, African American humanists may often feel isolated and misunderstood. These thoughtful essays help to draw attention to the vitality of the humanist movement within the black community and they put many myths about humanists to rest. Contrary to popular stereotypes, most humanists do not reject religion out of disillusionment, ignorance, desperation, or misanthropy. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that the decision to adopt the humanist viewpoint is based on intellectual honesty and the best information provided by science, history, comparative religion, and other scholarly disciplines. Moreover, they show that a central concern of humanists of all races is preservation and promotion of what humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz calls "the common moral decencies" shared by most religious and ethical systems. At a time when faith-based organizations are favored politically, especially within the black community, this timely collection of essays shows that humanism, with its emphasis on reason, free inquiry, moral decency, and justice, offers much to the challenges facing African Americans.

Reviving the Children of Nimrod

Reviving the Children of Nimrod PDF Author: A. Pinn
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403966247
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
As Anthony Pinn argues in his latest collection, humanism comes in many colors. When more attention is given to issues of race as connected to other forms of oppression, it is easier to see the manner in which humanism has lived and functioned within African American communities. Using the biblical figure Nimrod as symbol, African American Humanist Principles demonstrates African American humanists' intellectual and praxis-related grounding in a history of rebellion against over-determined and oppressive limitations on human doing and being. Pinn maintains that it is this quest for a fuller sense of being - for greater existential and ontological worth - that informs the basic principles of African American humanism. African American Humanist Principles is one of the only books to present the inner workings of humanist principles as the foundation for humanism from the African American perspective - its form and content, nature and meaning.

The End of God-Talk

The End of God-Talk PDF Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195340825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking study, Anthony B. Pinn challenges the long held assumption that African American theology is solely theist, arguing that this assumption has excluded a rapidly growing segment of the African American population - non-theists. Rejecting the assumption of theism as the African American orientation, Pinn poses a crucial question: What is a non-theistic theology?

The Black Practice of Disbelief

The Black Practice of Disbelief PDF Author: Anthony Pinn
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807045225
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A short introduction to Black Humanism: its history, its present, and the rich cultural sensibilities that infuse it In the United States, to be a Black American is to be a Black Christian. And there’s something to this assumption in that the vast majority of African Americans are Christian. However, in recent years a growing number of African Americans have said they claim no particular religious affiliation—they are Black "nones." And of these Black "nones," the most public and vocal are those who claim to be humanists. What does it mean to be a Black humanist? What do Black humanist believe, and what do they do? This slim volume answers these questions. Animated by six central principles, and discussed in terms of its history, practices, formations, and community rituals, this book argues that Black humanism can be understood as a religious movement. Pinn makes a distinction between theism and religion—which is simply a tool for examining, naming, and finding the meaning in human experience. Black humanism, based on this definition isn’t theistic but it is a religious system used to explore human experience and foster life meaning. It infuses humanism with rich cultural sensibilities drawn from Black experience. As shown in these pages, thinking about Black humanism this way frees readers from making unfounded assumptions and enables them to better appreciate the secular “beliefs,” ritual structures, and community formation constituted by Black humanists.

Humanism

Humanism PDF Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472581431
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Who are the "Nones"? What does humanism say about race, religion and popular culture? How do race, religion and popular culture inform and affect humanism? The demographics of the United States are changing, marked most profoundly by the religiously unaffiliated, or what we have to come to call the "Nones". Spread across generations in the United States, this group encompasses a wide range of philosophical and ideological perspectives, from some in line with various forms of theism to those who are atheistic, and all sorts of combinations in between. Similar changes to demographics are taking place in Europe and elsewhere. Humanism: Essays on Race, Religion and Popular Culture provides a much-needed humanities-based analysis and description of humanism in relation to these cultural markers. Whereas most existing analysis attempts to explain humanism through the natural and social sciences (the "what" of life), Anthony B. Pinn explores humanism in relation to "how" life is arranged, socialized, ritualized, and framed. This ground-breaking publication brings together old and new essays on a wide range of topics and themes, from the African-American experience, to the development of humanist churches, and the lyrics of Jay Z.