Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays presents a defense of universalism as the foundation of moral and political arguments and commitments. Consisting of five intertwined essays, the book claims that centering such arguments and commitments on a particular place, in this instance the African world, is entirely compatible with that foundational universalism. Ato Sekyi-Otu thus proposes a less conventional mode of Africacentrism, one that rejects the usual hostility to universalism as an imperialist Eurocentric hoax. Sekyi-Otu argues that universalism is an inescapable presupposition (...) of ethical judgment in general and critique in particular, and that it is especially indispensable for radical criticism of conditions of existence in postcolonial society and for vindicating visions of social regeneration. The constituent chapters of the book are exhibits of that argument and question some fashionable conceptual oppositions and value apartheids. (shrink)

With the flowering of postcolonialism, we return to Frantz Fanon, a leading theorist of the struggle against colonialism. In this thorough reinterpretation of Fanon's texts, Ato Sekyi-Otu ensures that we return to him fully aware of the unsuspected formal complexity and substantive richness of his work. A Caribbean psychiatrist trained in France after World War II and an eloquent observer of the effects of French colonialism on its subjects from Algeria to Indochina, Fanon was a controversial figure--advocating national liberation and (...) resistance to colonial power in his bestsellers, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. But the controversies attending his life--and death, which some ascribed to the CIA--are small in comparison to those surrounding his work. Where admirers and detractors alike have seen his ideas as an incoherent mixture of Existentialism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Sekyi-Otu restores order to Fanon's oeuvre by reading it as one dramatic dialectical narrative. Fanon's Dialectic of Experience invites us to see Fanon as a dramatist enacting a movement of experience--the drama of social agents in the colonial context and its aftermath--in a manner idiosyncratically patterned on the narrative structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. By recognizing the centrality of experience to Fanon's work, Sekyi-Otu allows us to comprehend this much misunderstood figure within the tradition of political philosophy from Aristotle to Arendt. Reviews of this book: "The goal of this often brilliant and always engaging book is to 'read Fanon's texts as though they formed one dramatic dialectical narrative'; the principal subject of this dramatic narrative, according to Sekyi-Otu, is 'political experience'. It is his deployment of a dialectical analysis of Fanon's 'dramatic personae' that permits Sekyi-Otu's fresh and insightful readings to take place." DD--Anthony C. Alessandrini, Minnesota Review "Ato Sekyi-Otu departs from the postmodernist paradigm and ushers in an alternative hermeneutic that primarily considers Fanon's texts as forming 'one dramatic dialectical narrative,' that is a narrative whose complexity is correlative of the intricate configurations of African social experience during the post-independent era...[His] book is an invaluable contribution that offers broader scope for a new appreciation of Fanon's political thinking." DD--Marc Mve Bekale, Revue AFRAM Review [UK] "[I]mportant...The author succeeds in...revealing the complexity and nuanced character of Fanon's thought." DD--Choice "Those who would dismiss or exult Fanon as the high priest of revolutionary violence will be chastened by this patient and completely convincing exposition of his work. Sekyi-Otu produces a reflexive, 'Gramscian' Fanon who, working as a 'detective of the politics of truth,' has produced insights that need to be taken over into the core of democratic political thought." DD--Paul Gilroy, University of London. (shrink)

This study seeks to articulate the universality of the eschatological expectation, in its specifically Christian form, by interpreting it from the perspective of a radical embodiment. This can be understood in a twofold manner. Firstly, the mysterious reality of the eschatological reign of God is rooted in – and thus can be more adequately grasped through the lens of – Jesus’ own body seen as distinct yet not separate from his risen body and, mutatis mutandis, from his extended body, both (...) ecclesial and cosmic. Secondly, for the eschatological expectation to be lived out in an incarnational way, it must be ‘enfleshed’ in actions aimed at social and ecological liberation.The article consists of four sections. Firstly, we explain in what sense body – and more specifically Jesus’ body – is used in our analysis as a hermeneutic key to notions such as ‘risen body’, ‘spiritual body’, ‘extended body’, ‘social body’, ‘ecclesial body’, ‘cosmic body’, basar/kol basar, and ‘life’. Then, the universality of the eschatological expectation is being articulated on two levels, namely, with regard to the social, and in particular the ecclesial, body, and with regard to the cosmic body, with ecological implications inherent in such perspective. Finally, we close the loop by briefly revisiting the notion of Jesus’ body. (shrink)

This paper examines the nexus between popular culture and the problem of corruption in Nigeria within the theoretical framework of the Socratic dictum that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. The paper argues that corruption is a social behavior that is propelled by popular culture and sustained by skewed application of logical thinking in critical decision making. Hence, the paper posits that formal education remains the bedrock upon which corruption can be curtailed and also equips people with logical tools (...) to examine their actions as individuals and its consequences on the larger society. (shrink)

The ovarian tumor (otu) gene behaves as if it encodes a product (OGP) which is required during several early steps in the transformation of oogonia into functional oocytes. The ovarian phenotypes produced by various EMS‐induced mutations can be explained as graded responses by individual mutant germ cells to the different levels of functionally active OGP they themselves synthesize. In addition, genetic evidence suggests that otu also encodes a second product that is utilized late in oogenesis. Molecular studies of the otugene (...) demonstrate that it does transcribe at least two ovaryspecific RNAs. The possible function of the otu product in the cellular divisions that give rise to the oocyte and its sister nurse cells is discussed. (shrink)

Die in den späten 1960er bis frühen 1980er Jahren oft inflationär gebrauchten Kategorien „Entfremdung“ und „Verdinglichung“ sind seit den frühen 2000er Jahren im deutschsprachigen Raum erneut in die sozialphilosophische Diskussion geraten. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz sollen an drei Beispielen diese Reaktualisierungen kritisch mit Bezug auf die Theorie von Karl Marx dargestellt und beurteilt werden. Obwohl diesen Reaktualisierungen nur eine unbefriedigende Kapitalismuskritik zugrunde liegt, werden durch sie Entfremdungs- und Verdinglichungsphänomene des Alltags und des intersubjektiven Nahraums der Gegenwart sichtbar, die in der Marxschen (...) Theorie mit ihrem primären Fokus auf gesellschaftliche Strukturen ausgeklammert blieben. (shrink)

Part of a book forum on Ato Sekyi-Otu's 'Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays' with a response by the author.

The rejection of liberal universalism originally arose from the political right. Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and other conservatives poured their scorn on the “Rights of Man” that the Enlighten...

The rejection of liberal universalism originally arose from the political right. Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and other conservatives poured their scorn on the “Rights of Man” that the Enlighten...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonAvram AlpertThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing, by Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 232 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.The world of postcolonial literary studies harbors a well-earned suspicion of claims to promoting liberal ideals like civility, rationality, and individuality. The liberal worldview, after all, arose in (...) the same era as European colonial expansion. To many critics, this was not a coincidence: liberal ideals were often crafted in opposition to the peoples that Europeans were encountering around the world. Whereas these other peoples were supposedly bound to collective myths, unaware of the primacy of the individual, and condemned to violent passions, liberals claimed that Europeans used rationality to perceive the value of individual life, and, in so doing, had unlocked the key to promoting civilizational harmony. All that everyone else had to do to experience this new way of life was, in one of history's most wretched paradoxes, to succumb to colonial violence and join the empire of liberty. It is thus quite logical that anticolonial criticism would call into question the basic features of the liberal worldview.But in recent years, an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars—including Sankar Muthu in political science, Sanjay Subrahmanyam in history, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam in literary studies, and Ato Sekyi-Otu in philosophy—have come to question this consensus.1 Their challenge rests on an ironic problem of the critique of ideologies associated with colonialism: by criticizing topics like civility, rationality, and individuality as such, do we not play into the very Eurocentric idea that these ideas were invented by Europeans in the first place? As these scholars have shown across various disciplines, geographies, and time periods, this critique risks giving modern Europe too much credit. Ideals often associated with liberalism have antecedents around the world. Sometimes they are used to advance general equality and well-being; sometimes they subvert these ideals. As Jeanne-Marie Jackson argues in her trenchant new book intervening in these debates, The African Novel of Ideas, we thus need a criticism that is as much attuned to the critique of "false universalisms" as it is open to "the promise of one that is true" (p. 189).Throughout her book, Jackson argues that a reconstructed liberalism is not only fundamental to literature from Africa but that the critical neglect of this fact has distorted the general understanding of literature today. Critics—especially but not exclusively in the West—have become so accustomed to sniffing out hints of liberal, individualist ideology that they routinely cast aside the ways in which African philosophers and novelists have themselves sought to explore and transform these ideals. Jackson's argument is not that liberalism, as it stands, is a noble philosophy that has been unfairly jettisoned. Rather, she posits that African writers are developing a fundamental innovation by considering how they—who were so long exploited by European ideals—can nonetheless find [End Page 495] meaning in both alternative and emergent versions of these very same ideals. What their work emphasizes is the "process of getting from an African locality to its universal resonance" (p. 185). In other words, whereas Europeans had simply presumed that their view of the world should apply everywhere, the contemporary novelists and philosophers discussed in this book engage in thorough intellectual and conceptual labor to tease out how ideas generated in one place might speak (without force) to peoples around the world.Jackson advances this argument through an innovative mix of philosophy and literature. Rather than evoking the standard series of French philosophers summoned to explicate literature, Jackson frames her readings through the work of philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Emmanuel Eze. This allows her to shift the focus of her readings of literature from questions of language and close reading to underanalyzed topics in philosophy and literature, especially about how African literature enacts philosophical questions. She discusses topics ranging from the nature of the self and the meaning of rationality to a meta-interrogation on the purpose of philosophizing itself (pp. 16–17). That purpose... (shrink)

Suvremena multikulturna društva velikim se dijelom okviruju u smislu proceduralne prije nego supstantivne etike, naglašavajući ispravnost umjesto dobrote, te uzdižu toleranciju kao ključnu vrijednost. No to ne može sâmo zamijeniti supstantivnu i motivacijsku normu dobroga života te se može iskusiti kao gubitak, otuđenje građana. Isto tako neće uspjeti suočiti se s granicama prihvatljivog djelovanja, neuvjetovanošću povezanom s moralnim gledištem. Klasična tradicija u etici, koja predlaže normu ljudskog blagostanja, može se ponovno izraziti kako bi iznijela na vidjelo ovu neuvjetovanost. Ukazat ću (...) na korisnost suprotne tradicije etičkog rasuđivanja u vidu proporcionalnosti, primjerice u slučaju ratne etike, te razmotriti alternativni koncept demokracije ne pod vidom formalnih i supstantivnih prava, nego etike participacije.Contemporary multicultural societies for the most part frame themselves in terms of a procedural rather than substantive ethics, by emphasizing rightness rather than goodness, and elevate tolerance to key value. But this cannot of itself replace a substantive and motivating norm of the good life and can be experienced as a loss, disaffecting citizens. It will also fail to confront the limits of acceptable action, the unconditionality associated with the moral point of view. The classical tradition in ethics, proposing a norm of human flourishing, can be re-expressed to bring out this unconditionality. I point to the counter tradition of ethical reasoning in terms of proportionality, exampled in the case of war ethics, as useful and draw on an alternative concept of democracy in terms not of formal or substantive rights but of an ethic of participation.Gegenwärtige multikulturelle Gesellschaften gestalten sich zumeist unter dem Aspekt der eher prozeduralen als materialen Ethik, indem sie die Richtigkeit anstelle der Güte herausheben, und werten die Toleranz zum Schlüsselwert auf. Dies per se vermag es immerhin nicht, die materiale und motivierende Norm des guten Lebens zu ersetzen, dagegen kann es als Verlust, als Bürgerentfremdung verspürt werden. Es versagt desgleichen in der Konfrontierung mit den Limits des akzeptablen Handelns, mit der moralitätsbetreffenden Bedingungslosigkeit. Die klassische Gepflogenheit in der Ethik, welche einen Maßstab der Menschheitsblüte nahelegt, kann wieder dargetan werden, um auf diese Bedingungslosigkeit Nachdruck zu legen. Ich deute auf die Nützlichkeit einer Gegentradition der ethischen Erwägung hin, aus der Perspektive der Proportionalität, exempli causa in der Angelegenheit der Kriegsethik, und stelle ein alternatives Demokratieschema auf, nicht im Sinne der formalen bzw. substantiven Rechte, sondern von der Ethik der Partizipation her. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie JacksonAvram AlpertThe African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing, by Jeanne-Marie Jackson; 232 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.The world of postcolonial literary studies harbors a well-earned suspicion of claims to promoting liberal ideals like civility, rationality, and individuality. The liberal worldview, after all, arose in (...) the same era as European colonial expansion. To many critics, this was not a coincidence: liberal ideals were often crafted in opposition to the peoples that Europeans were encountering around the world. Whereas these other peoples were supposedly bound to collective myths, unaware of the primacy of the individual, and condemned to violent passions, liberals claimed that Europeans used rationality to perceive the value of individual life, and, in so doing, had unlocked the key to promoting civilizational harmony. All that everyone else had to do to experience this new way of life was, in one of history's most wretched paradoxes, to succumb to colonial violence and join the empire of liberty. It is thus quite logical that anticolonial criticism would call into question the basic features of the liberal worldview.But in recent years, an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars—including Sankar Muthu in political science, Sanjay Subrahmanyam in history, Mukti Lakhi Mangharam in literary studies, and Ato Sekyi-Otu in philosophy—have come to question this consensus.1 Their challenge rests on an ironic problem of the critique of ideologies associated with colonialism: by criticizing topics like civility, rationality, and individuality as such, do we not play into the very Eurocentric idea that these ideas were invented by Europeans in the first place? As these scholars have shown across various disciplines, geographies, and time periods, this critique risks giving modern Europe too much credit. Ideals often associated with liberalism have antecedents around the world. Sometimes they are used to advance general equality and well-being; sometimes they subvert these ideals. As Jeanne-Marie Jackson argues in her trenchant new book intervening in these debates, The African Novel of Ideas, we thus need a criticism that is as much attuned to the critique of "false universalisms" as it is open to "the promise of one that is true" (p. 189).Throughout her book, Jackson argues that a reconstructed liberalism is not only fundamental to literature from Africa but that the critical neglect of this fact has distorted the general understanding of literature today. Critics—especially but not exclusively in the West—have become so accustomed to sniffing out hints of liberal, individualist ideology that they routinely cast aside the ways in which African philosophers and novelists have themselves sought to explore and transform these ideals. Jackson's argument is not that liberalism, as it stands, is a noble philosophy that has been unfairly jettisoned. Rather, she posits that African writers are developing a fundamental innovation by considering how they—who were so long exploited by European ideals—can nonetheless find [End Page 495] meaning in both alternative and emergent versions of these very same ideals. What their work emphasizes is the "process of getting from an African locality to its universal resonance" (p. 185). In other words, whereas Europeans had simply presumed that their view of the world should apply everywhere, the contemporary novelists and philosophers discussed in this book engage in thorough intellectual and conceptual labor to tease out how ideas generated in one place might speak (without force) to peoples around the world.Jackson advances this argument through an innovative mix of philosophy and literature. Rather than evoking the standard series of French philosophers summoned to explicate literature, Jackson frames her readings through the work of philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Emmanuel Eze. This allows her to shift the focus of her readings of literature from questions of language and close reading to underanalyzed topics in philosophy and literature, especially about how African literature enacts philosophical questions. She discusses topics ranging from the nature of the self and the meaning of rationality to a meta-interrogation on the purpose of philosophizing itself (pp. 16–17). That purpose... (shrink)

Suvremena umjetnost izgubila je svoju likovnost, a ostala joj je samo vizualnost. S druge strane, prijelaz od likovne moderne ka nelikovnoj suvremenoj umjetnosti donio je i mnogo novosti; jedna od njih je tzv. ‘probijanje četvrtog zida’. Radi se o kazališnom terminu koji označava trenutak kada se gledatelj na neki način interaktivno uključuje u predstavu, a likovi pokazuju svijest da su likovi u predstavi. Upravo će suvremena umjetnost istraživati postupke brisanja granica između umjetničkog i svakodnevnog čina, sugerirajući kako »sve je umjetnost« (...) i »svaki čovjek je umjetnik«. Novo je doba donijelo otuđenost javnosti od znanosti i umjetnosti, ali i nova filozofska tumačenja medijskog krajolika i hiperrealnosti postmoderne. Hiperrealne postaju i digitalne igre, od kojih se neke temelje upravo na rušenju »četvrtog zida«. Zbunjene reakcije na tehniku rušenja »četvrtog zida« variraju u rasponu od verbalnih reakcija na performance, preko previše doslovnog shvaćanja filmova pa sve do tragičnih nesreća, čak i samoubojstava povezanih s određenim digitalnim igrama. To da stvarnost oponaša hiperstvarnost postalo je uobičajeno, ali otvorilo se i pitanje: može li suvremeni pojedinac s time izaći na kraj? Modern art has lost its artistic character; only its visual aspect remains. On the other hand, the transition from modern fine arts towards non visual contemporary art has brought a great deal of novelties; one of these is “breaking the fourth wall”. This is a theatre term referring to moments when viewers become interactively involved in a play, and the characters become aware that they are characters in a play. Modern art has explored processes by which the border between artistic acts and everyday acts is erased, suggesting that “everything is art” and “every man is an artist”. The new era has caused the public to become alienated from science and the arts, but has also provided new philosophical interpretations of media landscapes and the hypperealism of the post-modern. Digital games are also becoming hyperrealistic, and some of these are founded on demolishing the “fourth wall”. Confused reactions to techniques of breaking the “fourth wall” vary from verbal reactions to a performance and excessively literal perceptions of film to tragic accidents or even suicides connected with particular digital games. Hyperreality mimicking reality has become commonplace, however the question arises: can the modern individual deal with this? (shrink)

Na sveprisutnu opasnost buđenja novih totalitarizama koji uništavaju društvenost i pluralizam, kao moguću posljedicu otuđenja Moderne, upozorila je autorica čije shvaćanje društvenosti čovjeka stoji u aporiji zbog opozicionalnosti između preferiranja elitističke političke slobode antike i augustinovske egalitarne slobode, urođene svim ljudskim bićima. Taj dvovrsni argumentacijski teorijski pravac uvjetovao je njezinu interpretaciju antičkog polisa kao ideala političke zajednice, te razdvajanje socijalne od političke problematike. Prema njoj, Akvinski čini grešku i izjednačava termine politicus i socialis, a to preuzima i Moderna. Ovo je (...) vidljivo npr. u tome što socijalna, ekonomska i tehnička pitanja sve više ulaze u politički prostor . Štošta je tome pomoglo, kako npr. tzv. protestantska etika tako i Francuska revolucija. Mnoštvo "poniženih i uvrijeđenih" željelo je u nastupu novog svijeta svoje osnovne biološke potrebe rješavati kroz ulazak u javnu sferu. Politički elitizam Hannah Arendt taj nastup mnogobrojnih zahtjeva za socijalnom jednakošću i socijalnom emancipacijom smatra dekadencijom autentičnog javnog područja, izvorno slobodnog od nužnosti života. Kako se ovakva pozicija referira na konkretnu problematiku segregacije u javnom obrazovanju, pokazuje analiza njezina teksta "Reflections on Little Rock".Hannah Arendt, whose comprehension of human beings’ sociability stands in aporia because ofoppositionality between preference for elitist political freedom of antiquity and Augustinian egalitarianfreedom, inborn to all human beings, warned of omnipresent peril of awakening of new totalitarianismswhich destroy sociability and pluralism, as a possible consequence of Modernism’salienation. That dual theoretical line of arguing determined her interpretation of antique polis asan ideal of political community, and one of separating social from political problems. According toher, Aquinas made a mistake in equating terms politicus and socialis, and Modernism accepts thatequation. This can be seen in progressive intrusion of social, economic and technical issues into political space . Many factors contributed to that situation, i.e. the Protestant Ethic and FrenchRevolution. In awakening of the new world, many of the oppressed and insulted wanted to satisfytheir basic biological needs by entering the public spheres. Hannah Arendt’s political elitism considersthe emergence of multiple demands for social equality and social emancipation as a decadenceof authentic public space, that is originally free from life’s necessities. My analysis of Arendt’stext »Reflections on Little Rock« shows the consequences of such position in specific problem ofsegregation in public education. (shrink)

Svjetlo i sjena tvore pojmovni par koji i u okviru filozofije daje povoda za brojne aluzije . Svjetlost vrijedi, povijesno sagledano, kao paradigma prosvjetiteljstva . Karakteristično, u ovoj se paradigmi javlja kolebanje na prijelazu iz razdoblja prosvjetiteljstva u romantizam: dolazi do uzvisivanja sjene u jeku romantičnog preobraženja tamne strane ljudske egzistencije. Na primjeru novele Adelberta von Chamissa Čudnovata pripovijest Petra Schlemihla moguće je pregnantno ilustrirati spomenuti zaokret od svjetla ka sjeni. U ovom tekstu će biti predstavljena filozofska interpretacija otuđenja sjene (...) kao gubitka identiteta, kako je oslikano u pripovijesti. Nadovezujući se na tu interpretaciju, uslijedit će pokušaj određivanja strukture odnosa tijela i sjene kao poveznice s identitetom. Ni u kom slučaju sjena ne smije biti degradirana na puku popratnu pojavu, već smo je dužni promatrati kao ozbiljan element konstelacije u tvorbi identiteta . Iako njezinu pojavu obilježava kratkotrajnost, sjena je značajno implementirana u identitet tijela, s obzirom da je tijelo definirano upravo činjenicom da pri osvjetljivanju stvara sjenu. Uzajamnost se svjetla, tijela i sjene stoga primiče egzemplifikaciji alternativnog modela identiteta, analogno čemu jedno tek potencijalno obilježje predmeta u određenoj prilici postaje neophodno. Konceptom okazionalnog identiteta moguće je korigirati ontološki rigidno poimanje identiteta. (shrink)