Transcendental phenomenology meets negritude poetry

Webber, Jonathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0529-5349 2023. Transcendental phenomenology meets negritude poetry. Heter, T. Storm and Sealey, Kris F., eds. Creolizing Sartre, Creolizing the Canon, Lanham MA: Rowman and Littlefield, Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

In the opening lines of ‘Black Orpheus’, written as a preface to an anthology of negritude poetry, Sartre challenges white readers ‘to feel, as I do, the shock of being seen’. Reading this poetry, he thinks, should undermine white people’s presumption of the objectivity of their perspective. Accordingly, the essay itself contradicts two prominent aspects of the philosophy he had so far developed: the idea that poetry could not be politically engaged; and the theory of radical freedom. These changes are ultimately rooted in his realisation, upon reading this poetry, that his previous understanding of prose is mistaken. This has the consequence that his philosophical method, which derives ontological conclusions from prose descriptions of experience, has two important limitations: its premises cannot be drawn solely from his own experience; and French prose might be insufficient for formulating all relevant premises. He therefore revises his method to deploy this poetry as phenomenological grounds for ontological conclusions, which transforms his ontology of human existence to include cultural inheritance as a primary feature. We will see how this reading of negritude poetry exemplifies both the epistemic challenge involved in what he calls ‘the look’ and the use of listening in response to it.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
Publisher:	Rowman and Littlefield
ISBN:	9781538162583
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 February 2023
Last Modified:	02 Mar 2023 10:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157393

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