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Philosophy

The IU Bloomington Libraries' Philosophy collection supports research and teaching in all branches of philosophy.

Introduction

Philosophy has long centered the perspective and contributions of white male thinkers, especially from Europe and the U.S. In recognition of Black History Month, we have compiled a guide highlighting just a few of the influential Black thinkers in order to expand the horizons of philosophy as it is currently understood and learn about the history and achievements of Black and African philosophers. Their works span the areas of Black feminism, colonial studies, and critical race theory, among others, and challenge us to think outside of dominant viewpoints. These thinkers represent only a handful of the many important Black philosophers of history and today, and we hope you'll continue to learn and explore beyond the scholars and lineages of thought we've highlighted here. 

Click through the tabs below to read about each area and thinker.

Further Reading & Exploration

Next Steps

As with many of these national commemorations, one month is never enough time to fully honor and celebrate the history and culture of marginalized communities, let alone heal the legacies (and ongoing reality) of harm they've experienced. We recognize that there is much more to be done, that racism and anti-blackness can't be eliminated simply through the creation of resource guides, and that the work of realizing justice won't soon be over. But nevertheless, we keep trying, contributing how we can and building upon the efforts of those who came before us, and we continue to learn from and with one another.

If you'd like to engage more deeply with Black History Month, the IU Libraries Arts & Humanities department has created a number of interrelated resources and features to provide more holistic coverage of this remembering. You'll find those, below:

And for all things Black culture, you can never go wrong with the resources, services, and collections of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library.

Prominent Black Philosophers

A selection of Black philosophers, along with a summary of their research areas and interests

  • Cornel West  (Union Theological Seminary) Classics, politics, cultural theory, literature, music, class, gender, race
  • Naomi Zack  (University of Oregon) Philosophy of Race (philosophy of science and political philosophy), Feminist Theory, Justice/Injustice Theory, Disaster Ethics, History of Philosophy (17th c., early 20th c. analytic).
  • Adrian Piper  Kantian philosophy, professional ostracism, otherness, racial passing, racism, conceptual art, performance art, non-traditional media.
  • Molefi Kete Asante  (Temple University) Afrocentricity, Intercultural Communication, Westernity, Location Theory, Critique of Domination, African American Experiences, Ancient Africa.
  • Laurence Thomas  (Syracuse University) Moral Thoery, Kantian philosophy, Human Sexuality, Social Philosophy, American Blacks, American Jews, autonomy.
  • Kenneth Allen Taylor  (American Philosophical Association) Philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, semantics, reference, naturalism, relativism.
  • Michele Moody-Adams  (Columbia University) Equality and social justice, moral psychology and the virtues, philosophical implications of gender and race, academic freedom, equal educational opportunity, democratic disagreement. 
  • John H. McClendon  (Michigan State University) African American philosophers and philosophical traditions, African philosophy, Marxism, philosophy of sports and the African American experience, philosophy of religion and African Americans.
  • Anita L. Allen  (University of Pennsylvania) Privacy, privacy law and society, ethics, feminist theory, accountability. 
  • Kathryn Sophia Belle  (Penn State University) Continental Philosophy, Africana Philosophy, Philosophy of Race, Black Feminist Philosophy
  • Jan Willis  (Agnes Scott College) Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist saints’ lives, Women and Buddhism, Buddhism and Race. 

Black Thinkers Across Time

Olaudah Equiano.Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-1797) was a writer whose autobiography illustrated the horrors of slavery. Born in the Kingdom of Benin, Equiano was taken to America as a slave but managed to purchase his freedom in 1766. He moved to London and became involved in the abolitionist movement.

Further Resources

Selected Works


Alain Locke.Alain Locke

Alain Locke (1885-1954), sometimes called the “Dean” of the Harlem Renaissance, was a philosopher known for his theory of the New Negro built on the concept of race-building. He was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar. He is often included on lists of the most important or influential African-Americans.

Further Resources

Selected Works


Kwame Anthony Appiah.Kwame Anthony Appiah

Kwame Anthony Appiah (1954-) is a scholar whose wide-ranging interests include political theory, philosophy of language, and African intellectual history. He is currently a professor at New York University. He has written about growing up as a gay man in Ghana and has also published several novels.

Further Resources

Selected Works


Tommie Shelby.Tommie Shelby

Tommie Shelby (1967-) is a professor of philosophy and African-American studies at Harvard University. He is known for his work in Africana philosophy, Marxist theory, and the philosophy of social science.

Further Resources

Selected Works

Ann J. Cooper.Anna J. Cooper

Anna J. Cooper (1858-1964), often called the “Mother of Black Feminism,” was an early contributor to the field of sociology and a prominent Black liberation activist. Born enslaved, she was a bright student who fought for the right to take courses only allowed to men at Oberlin College, and was one of the first Black women to receive a Master’s degree, in 1888. She was a founder of the Colored Women’s League in Washington DC, and lived until the age of 105.

Further Reading

  • Anna Cooper (National Parks Service - Exploring the Meaning of Black Womanhood Series: Hidden Figures in NPS Places)
  • Anna Julia Cooper (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Selected Works


Audre Lorde.Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a poet and civil rights activist who fought against issues of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Her poetry explores the Black female identity. Though Lorde was not an academic philosopher, her ideas such as the “theory of difference” and the presence of racism within feminism precipitated the theory of intersectionality and have been remarkably influential in the feminist discourse.

Further Reading

  • Audre Lorde (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
  • Audre Lorde (Poetry Foundation)

Selected Works


Barbara Smith.Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith (1946-) is a feminist activist. Along with her twin sister Beverly, also a feminist activist, she founded the Boston chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization (NFBO) in 1975, which then became the independent Combahee River Collective. Significantly, the collective recognized lesbianism as a legitimate identity. Smith coined the now widely-used term “identity politics.” Though she is not an academic philosopher, Smith’s ideas have been influential in the fields of Black feminism and LGBT activism. She also popularized many female authors of color through her publication press, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

Further Reading

Selected Works


Angela Davis.Angela Davis

Angela Davis (1944-) is a political activist and philosopher. Davis rose to prominence in the 1960s due to her participation in second-wave feminism and the campaign against the Vietnam War. An adherent of Marxism, Davis was a member of the American Communist Party from 1969-1991 and was twice that party’s candidate for Vice President. Davis was arrested in 1970 for capital felonies and served over a year in jail before being acquitted of all charges. In 1991 she founded the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). In 1997 she co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to abolishing the prison-industrial complex. She has taught at several institutions including San Francisco State University, University of California Los Angeles, and University of California Santa Cruz. She has authored over ten books about feminism, race, class, and the prison system.

Further Reading

Selected Works


Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins (1948-) is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who studies issues of feminism and gender. She has built extensively on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality.

Further Reading

Selected Works


bell hooks.bell hooks

bell hooks (1952-) is an influential feminist and social activist. The themes of her works include the impact of sexism and racism on Black women, the concept of a white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy, and the strength of healthy communities. A “radical feminist,” hooks has advocated for a complete transformation of the patriarchal system.

Further Reading

Selected Works

Kimberlé CrenshawKimberlé Crenshaw

Kimberlé Crenshaw (1959-) is a widely recognized expert on critical race theory. She is responsible for developing the theory of intersectionality, a concept that has entered the cultural consciousness. The executive director of the African American Policy Forum, she is a lawyer as well as a professor at UCLA and Columbia Law School.

Further Reading

Selected Works


George Yancy.George Yancy

George Yancy (1961-) is a professor of philosophy at Emory University, known for his work in critical whiteness studies. He has written many books and articles, as well as many influential essays in the New York Times’ “The Stone” philosophy column. In 2015, he came to national attention with his controversial article “Dear White America” published in “The Stone.”

Further Reading

Selected Works

Frantz Fanon.Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher whose works are important to the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. He was a member of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria, which led to his exile from that country; he has influenced many national-liberation movements around the world.

Further Reading

Selected Works


Achille Mbembe.Achille Mbembe

Achille Mbembe (1957-) is a Cameroonian philosopher who studies African history and postcolonial theory. He is responsible for the theory of necropolitics, the idea that social and political power is used to decide how some people live and some people die.

Further Reading

Selected Works

Sophie Oluwole.Sophie Oluwole

Sophie Bosede Oluwole (1935-2018) was an adherent of Yoruba philosophy, the school of thought of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. She was the first woman in Nigeria to hold a doctorate degree.

Further Reading

Selected Works

Richard A. Jones Richard A. Jones,.

Richard A. Jones taught philosophy for ten years at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is a past Co-Coordinator of the Radical Philosophy Association. Richard has published articles in Teaching PhilosophyThe Journal of Black Studies, Socialism and Democracy, and the Radical Philosophy Review. His latest philosophical work is The Black Book: Wittgenstein and Race (University Press of America, 2013). He has also been publishing poetry for over 60 years. His latest volume is Footnotes for a New Universe (Atmosphere Press, 2021). 

Further Resources

Selected Works


Melvin L. Rogers

Melvin L. Rogers.Professor Rogers has wide-ranging interests in contemporary democratic theory and the history of American and African-American political thought. He is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2008). His second book, The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought is forthcoming from Princeton University Press 2023. 

In addition, he has edited John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Ohio University Press, 2016) and African American Political Thought: A Collected History (University of Chicago Press, 2021), a collection of 30 essays on figures in the tradition of African American political thought co-edited with Jack TurnerHis articles appear in major academic journals and popular venues such as Dissentthe AtlanticPublic Seminar, and Boston Review. Professor Rogers now serves as the co-editor of Oxford University Press' New Histories of Philosophy series. The series attends to the unstudied resources in the history of philosophy, and he is keen to build its list in Africana Philosophy.

Further Resources

Selected Works

In Memoriam: bell hooks

bell hooks.bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) is one the most influential theorists, social activists, and feminists of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries. She was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky to a working-class African-American family in 1952. She spent the early part of her childhood under the long shadow of segregation, attending a segregated elementary school. Later, she moved on to an integrated school, graduating from Hopkinsville High School. She obtained a BA in English from Stanford University in 1973, an MA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976, and a PhD in the same subject from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983. She then taught at several colleges and universities including Santa Cruz, Oberlin College, and Yale. She passed away in 2021.

We have curated a series of her writings, as well as a few documentaries to which she contributed, in order to provide an introduction to her work.

To learn more her work and life, please enjoy a selection of online resources we've gathered to celebrate bell: