Research Thursdays - Clevis Headley’s Book Highlights George Yancy’s Contributions to the Field of Philosophy

George Yancy: A Critical Introduction (Rowman and Littlefield, November, 2021) is a book co-edited by Clevis Headley, FAU Associate Professor of Philosophy, along with Kimberley Ducey and Joe R Feagin.  The book, whose forward was written by Judith Butler, highlights the extensive contributions made by the American philosopher George Yancy, as well as the transformative power of his work. George Yancy is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. He has authored or co-edited more than 20 books and his work focuses on critical whiteness studies, critical philosophy of race, critical phenomenology, and African American philosophy. 

Yancy’s research focuses on the formation of African-American philosophical thought as articulated within the social and historical space of anti-Black racism, African-American agency, and questions of Black identity formation. His current work focuses on the theme of whiteness and how it constitutes a site of embedded social reality and a site of deep and enduring opacity, which is related to what he has theorized as white ambush. 

“Professor Yancy is deserving of credit and recognition for institutionalizing a theoretical framework that supports the creation of new questions, new research objects, new styles of thinking and theoretical structures that permit the framing of new truths."

“We hope that this work will have the effect of underscoring the importance and significance of philosophical work done by Africana philosophers. Among other things, we hope the work will confirm the importance of epistemic pluralism, of why it is necessary to have the blooming of alternative counter-frames. Specifically, we hope this work will influence analytic philosophers to appreciate the valuable contributions that alternative approaches to philosophy can make with regard to issues of race and racism and why there are serious limits to abstract, formal analysis.” 

– Clevis Headley, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Philosophy, FAU

The book can be purchased at: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538137482/George-Yancy-A-Critical-Reader

Headley has published in the areas of Critical Philosophy of Race, Africana/Afro-Caribbean philosophy, philosophy of language, and analytic philosophy. He has made considerable contributions to these fields through publications in such journals as Semiotica, Man and World: International Philosophical Journal, Diogenes, Shibboleths: A Journal of Comparative Theory, Philosophia Africana, and the Journal for Social Philosophy.  In addition to this, he has contributed chapters to numerous books in his areas of specialization. Previously to this most recent book, Headley coedited two other books, Shifting the Geography of Reason (2007) and Haiti and the Americas (2013). In addition to being an active member of many philosophical organizations, Headley was also the cofounder, with Lewis Gordon and Paget Henry, of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. 

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