my dissertation [or, another “what it is about” post]

to clarify, at least for me…lol

my dissertation is about the historicity of aesthetics that are found at the turn of — and through the mid — 20th century in what is called Black Pentecostalism in the US. i’m interested in the enlightenment split of aesthetics from theory — following a Kantian philosophy — and how this historic split animates those disciplines — anthropology, sociology, ethnography, for example — that would be constituted by something we might now call “black studies” [following what Nahum Chandler encourages :: “When speaking of the foundation and possibility of African American or African Diasporic Studies in the United States, we must begin by recognizing the ‘problematic’ that organized its conceptual necessity and its historical emergence.”]

so this first chapter i’m working on is about what in Black Pentecostalism is called “shouting,” which is an ecstatic dance and praise. i’m interested in how “shouting” is related both to the Ring Shout dance tradition and the Afro-Arabic “saut” that precede them both. in the chapter, i write about Enlightenment Philosophy, by way of Kant, and how there is an “philosophy of aversion” that animates this philosophical tradition, and how Enlightenment philosophy is generally a choreographic protocol and itinerary. so the argument is that Kant thinks choreographically [and this is not a mere metaphorization] that allows a certain aversion to objects, which turns out to be nothing other than an aversion to blackness and the Negro. and i’m arguing that the philosophy of aversion is engaged by blackness with a politics of avoidance, found in the “shout” traditions. in other words, there is a philosophic engagement of Enlightenment found in blackness that anticipates [and comes before] Enlightenment philosophy.