The collection of essays in Partisan Universalism celebrates the work of Ato Sekyi-Otu as a scholar, teacher and friend, marking his extraordinary contribution to the philosophy, politics and praxis of liberation. As Ato Sekyi-Otu has argued in his recent book, Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays (Routlege 2019), universalism is an 'inescapable presupposition of ethical judgment in general and critique in particular, especially indispensable for radical criticism of conditions of existence in postcolonial society and for vindicating visions of social regeneration'. Universalism must and can only be partisan. Edited by Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Sofia Noori, the collection includes essays by Stefan Kipfler, Patrick Taylor, Sophie Mcall, Gamal Abdel-Shehid, Jeremy M. Glick, Nigel C. Gibson, Jeff Noonan, Esteve Morera, Tyler Gasteiger, Olufemi Taiwo, Susan Dianne Brophy, Nergis Canefe, Chistoher Balcom and by Ato Sekyi-Otu himself. Lewis Gordon provides an afterword to this exceptional collection.
About the Author :
Gamal Abdel-Shehid, is Associate Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science and Graduate Program Director of Social and Politica Thought at York University, where he teaches the course 'Fanon and his Interlocutors'. He is author of Who Da' Man: Black Masculinites and Sporting Cultures and (with Nathan Kalman-Lamb) Out of Left Field: Sports and Social Inequality. His recent work has appeared in Social Identities, CLR James Journal and Phi- losophy and Global Affairs. He is currently working on a monograph entitled In light of the Master: Fanon and his Interlocutors.
Sofia Noori is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education. She is also a PhD alumnus from the department of Social and Political Thought at York University. She recently received the President's University-Wide Teaching Award (2020) for her praxis at the Faculty of Education at York University. She specializes in the field of refugee subjectivity, trauma narratives and education in Canada. She is currently working on her monograph entitled Living Within Hyphenated Paradoxes- The Canadian Adolescent Refugee Experience.
Review :
Responding to the invitation 'to re-member severed but shareable things', these lovers of truth, freedom, and dignity celebrate the searing intellect, generosity, wit, and compassion of the person and the scholar Ato Sekyi-Otu. In the crucial spaces he opened to generate alternatives to brutally Eurocentric Marxism and a politically hopeless post-structuralism, racial separatism and imperialist universalism, the wonderfully challenging essays of this collection together affirm that if the universal can only speak in particular tongues, it is our job to discern and amplify what is being uttered. Combined with
Sekyi-Otu's autobiographical reflections of learn- ing to be Black in the United States and insistence that Afropessimism turns the perverse ontology of the antiblack world into a Black ontology, this is a precious contribution. Not to be missed! -- Jane Anna Gordon, author of Statelessness and Contemporary Enslavement and co-editor (with Drucilla Cornell) of Creoliz- ing Rosa Luxemburg
Critically engaging Ato Sekyi-Otu's notion of partisan universalism, this timely volume of essays speaks directly to the onto-metaphysical issues that will give Africana thought the new foundations that will enable it to move beyond the linguistic turn, brush aside the ashes of Afro-pessimism, engage Badiou's new mathematical universalism, and to launch new projects of liberation on decolonized grounds of greater epistemic independence. A must read for all concerned with the future of Africana theory and praxis. -- Paget Henry, author of Caliban's Rea- son.
Ato Sekyi-Otu's thought is one of the most important and exciting in Africa today. It is no exaggeration to affirm that he is one of the two most innovative contemporary dialectical thinkers, the other being Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba. The texts compiled in this volume celebrate and engage with the work of Sekyi-Otu and were all delivered at a conference in his honour held at York University in October 2019. They bear eloquent witness to Sekyi-Otu's stature as a thinker and also to his consistent commitment to the universalization of humanity in both theory and practice. Deeply anchored in African cultures and modes of life, Sekyi-Otu has shown how ideas of human universality are ingrained in African popular say- ings and proverbs and are regularly reflected in artistic creations. The various texts collected here provide not only a glimpse of the extraordinary depth of his think- ing and breadth of his knowledge, but also of his genuine commitment to a better world for all of us. -- Michael Neocosmos, Emeritus Professor in the Humani- ties, Rhodes University, South Africa
