The Door of No Return

Being-As-Black

Michael E. Sawyer

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781439925577
  9781439925560
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439925584
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Social Sciences

In The Door of No Return, Michael E. Sawyer presents a bold work of speculative theory and philosophy that explores how Black people bring the future into being—and what existence in that future looks like. He considers what people of African descent face and the proper response to the situation. He introduces the idea of Being-As-Black as a response and questions the overarching ethos that will be the guide to a beneficial resolution.

Using critical theory and philosophy, Sawyer decouples Black identity and Black philosophy from White and Western frames by building on Toni Morrison's ideas of Black Thought and encouraging an understanding of Black Self-Consciousness and Black Self-Identity on Black terms. The Door of No Return uses music, literature, visual art, and a variety of physical disciplines to imagine a world that differs from one that confounds the positive formation of Black Self-Consciousness under the coercive regime of white supremacy and Anti-Black racism.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Prefatory Note
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Language and Terms
• Introduction
• Part I. Cognition
• Part II. Consciousness
• Part III. The Bearable Rightness of Being-as-Black
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index