Beyond the Doctrine of Man: Decolonial Visions of the Human

313 Pages·2019·2.038 MB·English

by  Jr. Rufus Burnett, M. Shawn Copeland, Joseph Drexler-Dreis, Yomaira C. Figueroa, Patrice Haynes, Kristien Justaert, Xhercis Méndez, Andrew Prevot, Mayra Rivera, Linn Marie Tonstad, Alexander Weheliye

Beyond the D octrine of M an

Beyond the Doctrine
of Man
Decolonial Visions of the Human
Joseph Drexler- Dreis
and
Kristien Justaert
Editors
fordham university press
New York 2020
Copyright © 2020 Fordham University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief
quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Fordham University Press has no responsibility for
the per sis tence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third- party Internet websites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on
such websites is, or w ill remain, accurate or appropriate.
Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a
variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in
print may not be available in electronic books.
Visit us online at www . fordhampress . com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Drexler-Dreis, Joseph, editor.
Title: Beyond the doctrine of man : decolonial visions of the
human / Joseph Drexler-Dreis and Kristien Justaert, editors.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Fordham
University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019015944 | ISBN 9780823286898
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780823285860 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophical anthropology. |
Decolonization. | Postcolonialism.
Classification: LCC BD450 .B4456 2020 |
DDC 128—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015944
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
22 21 20 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
Contents
Introduction: The Proj ects of Unsettling Man
joseph drexler- dreis and kristien justaert 1
Part I sylvia wynter and the proj ect of unsettling man
1. Where Life Itself Lives
mayra rivera 19
2. Unsettling Blues: A Decolonial Reading of the Blues Episteme
rufus burnett jr. 36
3. Not Your Papa’s Wynter: Women of Color Contributions
toward Decolonial Futures
xhercis méndez and yomaira c. figueroa 60
Part II religious cosmologies and the proj ect of unsettling man
4. Enfleshing Love: A Decolonial Theological Reading
of Beloved
m. shawn copeland 91
5. Nat Turner’s Orientation beyond the Doctrine of Man
joseph drexler- dreis 113
6. Mystical Bodies of Christ: Human, Crucified, and Beloved
andrew prevot 134
7. African Humanism: Between the Cosmic and the Terrestrial
patrice haynes 161
Part III biopolitics and the proj ect of unsettling man
8. Bodies That Speak
linn marie tonstad 193
9. Life beyond the Doctrine of Man: Out of This World
with Michel Henry and Radical Queer Theory
kristien justaert 217
vi Contents
10. Black Life/Schwarz- Sein: Inhabitations of the Flesh
alexander g. weheliye 237
Acknowl edgments 263
Bibliography 265
List of Contributors 289
Index 293
Beyond the D octrine of M an

Introduction
The Proj ects of Unsettling Man
Joseph Drexler- Dreis and Kristien Justaert
We have lived the millennium of Man in the last five hundred years;
and as the West is inventing Man, the slave- population is a central
part of the entire mechanism by means of which that logic is working
its way out. But that logic is total now, because to be not- Man is to be
not- quite- human. Yet that plot, that slave plot on which the slave
grew food for his/her subsistence, carried over a millennially other
conception of the human to that of Man’s. . . . So that plot exists
as a threat. It speaks to other possibilities. And it is out
of that plot that the new and now planetary- wide and
popu lar musical humanism of our times is emerging.
— sylvia wynter, in an interview with David Scott, “The
Re- Enchantment of Humanism: An Interview with Sylvia Wynter”
Being h uman as a praxis, as the Jamaican novelist, dramatic critic, and es-
sayist Sylvia Wynter conceives of it,1 goes through the flesh. Against the
annihilating theories that construct Man as a doctrine, there is the slave’s
plot, where the slave grows food, t here is the strengthening flesh of the
person who is not permitted within the historical structures and par ameters
of understanding within Western modernity to be h uman, but who nev-
ertheless concretely lives an alternative. The question of living out human-
ity within Eu ro pean modernity entails what Aimé Césaire calls a “science
of the Word.”2 That is, it entails a praxis of reimagining ways of being and
knowing, beyond t hose codified by the modern world- system. An analy sis
of the understanding of a specific genre of the h uman person that emerged
in the North Atlantic trade cir cuits in the fifteenth century, which Wynter
refers to as “Man,” uncovers the importance of rewriting knowledge and
inventing new practices as a way of contesting dominant definitions of the
human through the creative act of expressing and presenting alternatives.
This is precisely what the essays in this volume strive to do.
These essays engage how thinkers have taken up the half- millennium
strug gle for decoloniality in relation to the question of being— that is, in
1