Theory of Racelessness: A Case for Antirace(ism) (African American Philosophy and the African Diaspora)

✍ Scribed by Sheena Michele Mason

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 234
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book presents a skeptical eliminativist philosophy of race and the theory of racelessness, a methodological and pedagogical framework for analyzing "race" and racism. It explores the history of skeptical eliminativism and constructionist eliminativism within the history of African American philosophy and literary studies and its consistent connection with movements for civil rights. Sheena M. Mason considers how current anti-racist efforts reflect naturalist conservationist and constructionist reconstructionist philosophies of race that prevent more people from fully confronting the problem of racism, not race, thereby enabling racism to persist. She then offers a three-part solution for how scholars and people aspiring toward anti-racism can avoid unintentionally upholding racism, using literary studies as a case study to show how "race" often translates into racism itself. The theory of racelessness helps more people undo racism by undoing the belief in "race."

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Theory of Racelessness, a Methodological and Pedagogical Framework
Introduction
Race(ism) Under Construction
Philosophizing “Race”
The Theory of Racelessness: A Case for Anti-race(ism)
Looking Forward
Bibliography
Chapter 2: African American Literature and Anti-Racism Practices
Bibliography
Chapter 3: The Theory of Racelessness in Literary Studies: The Literal Absence of “Race” Versus the Figurative Presence of Color
Introduction
She’s Tragic (Mulatta)
Racelessness as Trope
The Literal Absence of “Race” Versus the Figurative Presence of Color
Beyond and Against Race(ism) Into Home
Bibliography
Chapter 4: Toni Morrison’s Marathon Run Home to Racelessness in Song of Solomon, “Recitatif,” and Paradise
Bibliography
Chapter 5: The Theory of Racelessness: Cutting Through the Madness of Race(ism)
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Conclusion: Imagining a Post-Racist Nation
Index