Michael E. Sawyer - "The Door of No Return: Being-As-Black"
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Michael E. Sawyer will discuss "The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black." A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.
About the book: "This work, stunning in its lucidity, develops the notion of a Black Aesthetic through an engagement with Toni Morrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and a range of scholarly and popular forms of Black thought. Accepting the importance of Afropessimist insistence on the pervasive reality of anti-Blackness, Sawyer nevertheless finds the thresholds and liminal spaces that open up both imagination and a transformative futurity. Generous and attentive in his readings of a range of texts, songs, theories, and fictions, Sawyer opens a world and lets us think, perhaps for the first time, about what that world has been, is, and will be. Speculative, capacious, careful, compelling, and brilliant, 'The Door of No Return' demonstrates a Black Aesthetic that creates paths and redraws the maps of space and world, as if for the first time."
-JUDITH BUTLER, University of California, Berkeley
In "The Door of No Return," Michael E. Sawyer presents a bold work of speculative theory and philosophy that explores how Black people bring the future into being-and what existence in that future looks like. He considers what people of African descent face and the proper response to the situation. He introduces the idea of Being-As-Black as a response and questions the overarching ethos that will be the guide to a beneficial resolution.
About the author: Michael E. Sawyer is Professor of African American Literature and Culture in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. He is a faculty affiliate of Africana Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies.
A scholar, author, and artist, Professor Sawyer has published four monographs: "An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis," "Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X," "Sir Lewis and The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black" (Temple University Press, 2026). "Sir Lewis," a cultural biography of Afro-British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, has been translated into twelve languages and is an international bestseller in its category.
In addition to his academic work, Professor Sawyer is an artist in residence at ONX Studios in New York City and Athens, Greece. His photography was recently featured is a special issue of the journal boundary 2, entitled “Exocriticism”. He is co-editor of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy and serves on the Executive Committee of Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon.
About the book: "This work, stunning in its lucidity, develops the notion of a Black Aesthetic through an engagement with Toni Morrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and a range of scholarly and popular forms of Black thought. Accepting the importance of Afropessimist insistence on the pervasive reality of anti-Blackness, Sawyer nevertheless finds the thresholds and liminal spaces that open up both imagination and a transformative futurity. Generous and attentive in his readings of a range of texts, songs, theories, and fictions, Sawyer opens a world and lets us think, perhaps for the first time, about what that world has been, is, and will be. Speculative, capacious, careful, compelling, and brilliant, 'The Door of No Return' demonstrates a Black Aesthetic that creates paths and redraws the maps of space and world, as if for the first time."
-JUDITH BUTLER, University of California, Berkeley
In "The Door of No Return," Michael E. Sawyer presents a bold work of speculative theory and philosophy that explores how Black people bring the future into being-and what existence in that future looks like. He considers what people of African descent face and the proper response to the situation. He introduces the idea of Being-As-Black as a response and questions the overarching ethos that will be the guide to a beneficial resolution.
About the author: Michael E. Sawyer is Professor of African American Literature and Culture in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. He is a faculty affiliate of Africana Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies.
A scholar, author, and artist, Professor Sawyer has published four monographs: "An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis," "Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X," "Sir Lewis and The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black" (Temple University Press, 2026). "Sir Lewis," a cultural biography of Afro-British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, has been translated into twelve languages and is an international bestseller in its category.
In addition to his academic work, Professor Sawyer is an artist in residence at ONX Studios in New York City and Athens, Greece. His photography was recently featured is a special issue of the journal boundary 2, entitled “Exocriticism”. He is co-editor of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy and serves on the Executive Committee of Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon.
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5751 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, IL, United States, Illinois 60637
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