Gray and Johnson will discuss their forthcoming book, "Phenomenology of Black Spirit," on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in LaRose Digital Theater, Koury Business Center 101.
Elon’s Department of Philosophy and the African & African American Studies minor will host a book-launch discussion of “Phenomenology of Black Spirit,” co-authored by Elon Associate Professor of Philosophy Ryan Johnson and Syracuse University Assistant Professor of Religion Biko Mandela Gray, on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in LaRose Digital Theater, Koury Business Center 101.
Gray and Johnson will discuss their forthcoming book with Stephen Ferguson, associate professor of philosophy and Africana studies at N.C. State. A leading voice in African American philosophy, Ferguson will moderate a discussion about what may be the first philosophy book written in a single voice by a Black philosopher and a white philosopher.
In the book, Gray and Johnson juxtapose Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s 1805 book, “The Phenomenology of Spirit” — which dealt with self-consciousness and the “othering” of what isn’t the self from a white, European point-of-view — with the writings of Black thinkers and philosophers.
“We’re trying to strike a balance between them, so you have this great conversation between Black scholars and thinkers with Hegel,” Johnson said. “We want to change who is included in the philosophical canon. We want to set up conversations and ways Black studies scholars might enter into critiques of the canon.”