On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to Be Human
Toward Black Specificity in Higher Education
- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to Be Human
Toward Black Specificity in Higher Education
About this book
Develops a theoretical and methodological focus on Blackness to rethink ideas about humanity underpinning the field of student development.
Winner of the 2025 Outstanding Book Award presented by the Division B of the American Educational Research Association
In "No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues," Jamaican writer and theorist Sylvia Wynter critiques the social and human sciences for perpetuating social hierarchies, particularly through the Western humanist framing of "Man" as the universal representation of humanity. Human development theories revolve around this concept, necessitating acquiescence to the category Man to claim humanity. But Blackness complicates and unsettles these terms in ways the fields of higher education and educational research are in many ways just beginning to confront.
On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to Be Human extends Wynter's critique to human development and academic knowledge production, arguing that Black specificity can create new possibilities for Black being. Wilson Kwamogi Okello closely examines holistic development theory, aiming not to reform but to reimagine the "self" it presupposes. Taking what he describes as a multimodal and multisensory approach, Okello engages a chorus of writers, thinkers, and cultural workers-Baldwin, Bambara, Brand, Hartman, Lorde, Sharpe, Spillers, Wilderson, and more-to reframe Blackness as a social, political, and historical matrix, going beyond the study of Black experiences, biology, or culture. Punctuated throughout by stunning images from artist Mikael Owunna's "Infinite Essence" series, the book proposes and enacts a methodological attunement to Blackness that can guide theory, policy, and practice toward an alternative praxis for the benefit of Black living.
Frequently asked questions
- Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
- Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction: Preliminary Vocabulary toward Black Specificity
- Part I. On What It Means to Be Human
- Part II. Black Ontological Possibility: The Praxes of Self-Definition
- Part III. Carcerality and the Radical Imagination of Self-Definition
- Gratitude
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Back Cover