Another Humanity - (Contemporary Continental Ethics) by Benjamin P Davis

About the Book

Offers a new reading of humanity in decolonial theory.

Book Synopsis

Is there a way of being human that could invite people away from today's models of violence and consumerism? Looking forward to a new, increasingly creolized century, in 1997 the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asked, 'Do we have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?'

Building on the defense of human rights he outlined in Choose Your Bearing, Benjamin P. Davis traces figures of 'the human' and 'humanity' in W. E. B. Du Bois, Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter and Edward Said. He concludes with a reflection on Hannah Arendt's post-war correspondence with Karl Jaspers, which offers lessons for a new humanism as we witness ongoing wars today.

Review Quotes

Its willingness to extend its argument beyond the ivory towers of academic debate lends it additional value; specifically, it offers relevant, practical commentary that connects the thoughts of 20th-century luminaries to contemporary 21st-century geopolitics, particularly on issues affecting the Middle East.--Kirkus Reviews

This provocative book suggests that the tide has turned against sophistry and fatalism. Benjamin Davis has joyfully demonstrated that they are not the most sophisticated kinds of 'theory' after all.--Paul Gilroy, University College London

In a concentrated attitude of modesty, reflexiveness, and provocation, Another Humanity offers a searching practice of redressive criticism animated by the historical wrong of colonial dispossession. Reading the 'human' through Du Bois, Glissant, Wynter, Said, and Arendt, Benjamin Davis encourages us to see the problem of 'humanity' as the inescapable core of an alternative contemporary politics.--David Scott, Columbia University

Another Humanity is a brilliant book--its brilliance lies in its humility. Rather than creating new concepts out of thin air, it engages with existing ideas, traces their entanglement in histories of asymmetrical power, and revitalizes them as tools and lenses for imagining and realizing a decolonial future. Davis's book successfully experiments with a different political and ethical attitude toward theory and the world--and it invites us to do the same.--Massimiliano Tomba, University of California, Santa Cruz

In Another Humanity, Benjamin P. Davis unpacks the outline of an unfolding crescendo of critical thinking to locate our fragile humanity on a more leveled ground. Like a defiant Sisyphus, at a time when Americans have elected a president who defies every single sense of human decency, Davis insists on righting the wrong, rolling the boulder up the hill.--Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University