Awards

• Winner of Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize in Comparative Literary Studies 2011
• Winner of Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize in Comparative Literary Studies, Modern Language Association 2010
• Winner of Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize in Comparative Literary Studies, Modern Language Association 2011

Overview

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9780231145480

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Reviews

This book brings together Donna V. Jones's impressive knowledge of nineteenth-century German hermeneutic and philosophical traditions with her critique of colonialism. It shows, in particular, the ways in which the rise of racial discourse drew upon vitalist traditions. Through an erudite and striking comparative reading of Aime Cesaire and Leopold Senghor, Jones delineates two very different trajectories for the vitalist tradition within twentieth-century black thought. -- Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley Donna V. Jones's magisterial book reveals how race discourse in interwar Europe was appropriated by anticolonialists in order to position Negritude as the regenerative counterpart to a moribund Europe. Jones also draws on her historical findings to throw critical light on the afterlife of vitalism in the thought of such contemporary theorists as Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, and Elizabeth Grosz. Jones enriches our understanding of what she perceptively terms 'postmodern vitalism.' This is a remarkable achievement, and Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy will have a significant impact on many disciplines, including African and Caribbean studies, art history, comparative literature, French studies, history, and philosophy. -- Mark Antliff, Duke University In this remarkable study, Donna V. Jones not only examines the influence of Bergson on Senghor, Cesaire, and their disciples, but also the vital connections between life philosophies in the West and the structure of thought from which the expressive strategies of Negritude derive. -- F. Abiola Irele, Harvard University

Author Information

Donna V. Jones is an associate professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at Stanford University and Princeton University. Her next project is The Promise of European Decline: Race and Historical Pessimism in the Era of the Great War.

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