Synopsis
Decolonizing Existentialism and Phenomenology analyzes the history of decolonial existentialist and phenomenological theory in the work of figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Richard Wright, Franz Fanon, Lewis Gordon, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Wynter, and Jamaica Kincaid in order to reimagine and rewrite the philosophical canon. Phenomenology and existentialism study the structures of consciousness as experienced from the perspective of the subject, yet their methods have been markedly tied to the subjective lived experiences and perspectives of White Europeans and Americans. By centering the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora, gender marginalized people, and queer peoples, Africana existentialist and phenomenologist philosophers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been able to generate new frameworks for understanding structures of meaning and consciousness within oppressive colonial orders thus challenging histories of existentialism and phenomenology that bracket social markers of identity and experiences of social identity. This text represents a study of the philosophies of scholars that seek to decolonize hegemonic discourses and structures that impede the development of the selves and projects of colonized peoples.
About the Author
Jina Fast is the SHIFT Associate Professor of Applied Ethics and the Common Good and Director of the Learning Collaboratives at Hampshire College, USA. As a feminist epistemologist, queer theorist, and critical philosopher of race, her work centers theories produced by and through the experiences and work of marginalized folks across disciplines. Dr. Fast's work has been published in the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice, Philosophy and Global Affairs, The Journal of Education, and Hypatia, among others. Her first book, entitled Decolonizing Existentialism and Phenomenology: The Liberation of Philosophies of Freedom and Identity, was published in December 2023 by Rowman and Littlefield International. She previously edited a volume of essays on Herbert Marcuse entitled The Marcusean Mind as part of Routledge's Philosophical Minds series in 2024. She is currently at work on a book on creolizing 20th-century post-war aesthetics.
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