Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities

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Psychology Press, 1995 - Philosophy - 218 pages

In Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities which includes the first extended philosophical discussion of the works of Frederick Douglass, Cynthia Willett puts forward a novel theory of ethical subjectivity that is aimed to counter prevailing pathologies of sexist, racist Eurocentric culture. Weaving together accounts of the self drawn from African-American and European philosophies, psychoanalysis, slave narratives and sociology, Willett interrogates what Hegel locates as the core of the self: the desire for

 

Contents

Tactile Sociality
31
11
37
31
47
3
53
4
68
Dissonance and Social Struggle 5555
95
Hegels Master Narrative of Freedom
105
Will over Desire
106
Agency in the Slave
148
Nietzschean and Psychoanalytic Explanations
151
The Pathology of the Oppressor
152
The Healing Power of Music
154
The Rhythms and Tones of Freedom
156
Friedrich Nietzsche versus Frederick Douglass
157
Dubois on Freedom
159
Free Spirits
160

Freedom as SelfMastery
113
The Slave as the Liminal Self
119
The African American Experience of Slavery
120
Black DialecticWhite Dialectic
126
A Slave Narrative of Freedom
129
The Ecstacy of Struggle
132
Douglass versus Foucault on Literacy
135
Liberal and Dialectical Constructions of Manhood
137
Black Spirituality
143
Ecstatic Manhood
161
Demythologizing Power
166
The Fear of Color
167
Tactile Recognition
169
The Birth of Freedom from the Spirit of Music
173
Conclusion
174
Notes
177
Index
213
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