Cornel West

Cornel Ronald West ( born June 2, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is one of the leading intellectuals of African-American origin. Currently, West University Professor of Theology and African American studies at Princeton University. West is influenced by the new historicism, pragmatism, but also from non-dogmatic Marxism and of Baptist theology.

Biography

West, grandson of a preacher who was inspired as a youth spiritually and politically by the American civil rights movement. At age 17, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he heard, among others, John Rawls, and later studied at Princeton University, for example, in the well-known pragmatist Richard Rorty. 1980 doctorate Cornel West with a thesis on the ethical aspects of Marxism.

Subsequently, an assistant professor of theology in New York, he also worked at Yale University and at the Sorbonne before moving back to Princeton. There he worked with Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate, together.

His collection of essays, "Race Matters " in 1993, including an analysis of the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King police scandal, became a bestseller. In the following years he took part in President Clinton's " National Conversation on Race". After another exchange of the University Cornel West was appointed in 1998 on the Harvard University professor. Higher internal dispute over West's extramural activities (eg playing the scholar hip-hop albums a ) led Cornel West in 2002 finally back. At Princeton University In 2004, he committed himself to the politician Al Sharpton.

West and others, received the American Book Award. He is Honorary Chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Self-understanding and political positions

Cornel West, may also partly covered by self-reports, as " organic intellectuals " in the sense of Gramsci understood. As an inspiring model called West and A. Martin Luther King. Pure academic activity alone is therefore not a matter for that scholars. The him sometimes angekreideten critically -campus activities (West worked for example on The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions with ), its enriched with remarks on black popular culture and current political developments scholarly essays belong to West's self-image as a committed and party participating " cultural workers ". He criticized not only racism in the white majority society, but also for example the consumerism and the loss of solidarity tendencies in the black middle class, as well as the weaknesses of African-American elites.

Quotes

"We are in the midst of a dispute, a cultural slugfest. It has to do with the fact that the legacy of '60s conservatives and reactionaries drove on the defensive. "

"The humanity of black people does not rest on deifying or demonizing others. "

Selected Works

  • Black Theology and Marxist Thought ( 1979)
  • Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro - American Revolutionary Christianity (1982 )
  • Prophetic Fragments ( 1988)
  • The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (1989 )
  • Breaking Bread: ( hooks with bell, 1991) Insurgent Black Intellectual Life
  • The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought ( 1991)
  • Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism (1993 )
  • Race Matters (1993 )
  • Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America ( 1994)
  • Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America ( with Michael Lerner, 1995)
  • Future of the Race ( with Henry Louis Gates Jr., 1996)
  • The War Against Parents: What We Can Do For America 's Beleaguered Moms and Dads ( with Sylvia Ann Hewlett, 1998)
  • The Future of American Progressivism ( with Roberto Unger, 1998 )
  • The African - American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century ( with Henry Louis Gates Jr., 2000)
  • Cornel West: A Critical Reader (Editor: George Yancy 2001)
  • Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (2004)
  • Cornel West & BMWMB: Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations ( 2007)
  • Commented on The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions ( with Ken Wilber, 2004)
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