Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death

This paper considers John Brown as a paradigmatic respondent to James Cone’s and Frank Wilderson’s charges for Humanity to “become Black.” More precisely, this paper takes Du Bois’s reading of John Brown as a meditation upon what Nahum Chandler describes as the “soul of an ex White man.” For Du Boi...

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Main Author: Andrew Santana Kaplan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Columbia University Libraries 2023-11-01
Series:Black Theology Papers Project
Online Access:https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/btpp/article/view/12518
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author Andrew Santana Kaplan
author_facet Andrew Santana Kaplan
author_sort Andrew Santana Kaplan
collection DOAJ
description This paper considers John Brown as a paradigmatic respondent to James Cone’s and Frank Wilderson’s charges for Humanity to “become Black.” More precisely, this paper takes Du Bois’s reading of John Brown as a meditation upon what Nahum Chandler describes as the “soul of an ex White man.” For Du Bois, Brown’s taking up of the “Negro question” proceeded to shape his entire existence. By drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s messianic conception of “form of life” and Afropessimism’s elaboration of the “Negro question” through the paradigm of social death, this paper offers a reading of Du Bois’s Brown as a form of life toward social death
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spelling doaj-art-85dba3f29c9b416790434840946cb9842025-01-26T20:32:24ZengColumbia University LibrariesBlack Theology Papers Project2641-27992023-11-0191Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social DeathAndrew Santana Kaplan This paper considers John Brown as a paradigmatic respondent to James Cone’s and Frank Wilderson’s charges for Humanity to “become Black.” More precisely, this paper takes Du Bois’s reading of John Brown as a meditation upon what Nahum Chandler describes as the “soul of an ex White man.” For Du Bois, Brown’s taking up of the “Negro question” proceeded to shape his entire existence. By drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s messianic conception of “form of life” and Afropessimism’s elaboration of the “Negro question” through the paradigm of social death, this paper offers a reading of Du Bois’s Brown as a form of life toward social death https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/btpp/article/view/12518
spellingShingle Andrew Santana Kaplan
Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
Black Theology Papers Project
title Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
title_full Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
title_fullStr Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
title_full_unstemmed Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
title_short Notes on an Ex White Man’s Form of Life Toward Social Death
title_sort notes on an ex white man s form of life toward social death
url https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/btpp/article/view/12518
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