{"product_id":"ontological-terror-blackness-nihilism-and-emancipation-9780822370871","title":"Ontological Terror: Blackness, Nihilism, and Emancipation","description":"In \u003ci\u003eOntological Terror\u003c\/i\u003e Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the \"Negro question\" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on investing blackness with nonbeing--a logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks--Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCalvin L. Warren is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50544107815186,"sku":"9780822370871","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_67f03d5d-947b-4270-ad1b-8190923f659f.jpg?v=1731520875","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/ontological-terror-blackness-nihilism-and-emancipation-9780822370871","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}