William David Hart
Biographic Data
| ID | 3940441 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William David Hart |
| GIVEN NAMES | William David |
| FAMILY NAME | Hart |
| SIGNATURE | HART W D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macalester College |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction
John Dewey's global influence is nowhere more apparent than in the uptake of his educational philosophy: from the United States to Brazil, Japan, and to many other destinations far and wide. We should not be surprised that Dewey's pragmatism or “instrumentalism,” as he sometimes called it, would gain a toehold within the Indian subcontinent. That toehold was established by his former student at Columbia University, Bhimrao Ambedkar, the leader of…
Sense and Sensibility: IARPT's Four Existential Orientations
The concerns of the Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought are worlds apart from the preoccupations that animate the characters in Jane Austen's novels. This is not to say that IARPT is disinterested in romance, love, and heartbreak. It is to say, rather, that Sense and Sensibility, the title of Austen's 1811 novel, is a good cover term for the matters that I wish to address. I say this despite the fact that many characters in …
Afterlives of Slavery: Afrofuturism and Afropessimism as Parallax Views
If stars appear to change position, to be displaced when viewed from different point in the earth's orbit, then by analogy we might say that Afrofuturism and Afropessimism are parallax angles on the afterlife of slavery. Afrofuturism and Afropessimism inhabit forms of imaginative spacetime that are both congruent and incongruent. I will call the triangular relations among the afterlife of slavery, Afrofuturism, and Afropessimism, a “black mood.” …
The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse
This book explores the relations among blackness, antiblackness, and Black people within the discourse of the blackness of black. This critical discourse developed during the last two decades as scholars explored what Saidiya Hartman describes as the afterlife of slavery. Hartman’s concept, which argues for a troubling continuity between the status of enslaved and emancipated Black people, is the pivot between discursive tributaries and trajector…
Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger
Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger. Columbia University Press, 2018. 328 pages. $75.00 (hardcover), $74.99 (e-book). William David Hart William David Hart Macalester College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Ameri…
Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. By Joseph R. Winters
This book explores a complex set of themes regarding black identity construction and the co-constitutive realities of melancholy and hope. On this view, black racial subjects are hopeful because of their melancholia and not in spite of it. Black hope sublates (aufheben) melancholy, that is, preserves, cancels, transforms, and lifts it higher. Melancholic hope represents a creative appropriation of Freud’s famous distinction between mourning and m…
Constellations: Capitalism, Antiblackness, Afro-Pessimism, and Black Optimism
Research Article| January 01 2018 Constellations: Capitalism, Antiblackness, Afro-Pessimism, and Black Optimism William David Hart William David Hart Macalester College William Hart, professor and holder of the Margaret W. Harmon Chair at Macalester College, researches the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics. His current projects include an exploration of antiblackness within the theoretical discourse of black studies; a comparative an…
Debate, Prophecy, and Revolution: Notes on Cathleen Kaveny's Prophecy Without Contempt
In Prophecy without Contempt , Cathleen Kaveny argues that prevailing scholarly approaches to religious and public discourse misunderstand the actual complexity of moral rhetoric in America. She endeavors to provide a better account through study of the role the Puritan jeremiad has played. Kaveny then offers a normative case for deliberative public moral discourse and the limited exercise of prophetic denunciation. I argue that Kaveny's distinct…
Slaves, Fetuses, and Animals: Race and Ethical Rhetoric
This essay is an exploration in ethical rhetoric, specifically, the ethics of comparing the status of fetuses and animals to enslaved Africans. On the view of those who make such comparisons, the fetus is treated as a slave through abortion, reproductive technologies, and stem cell research, while animals are enslaved through factory farming, experimentation, and as laborers, circus performers, and the like. I explore how the apotheosis of the fe…
One Percenters: Black Atheists, Secular Humanists, and Naturalists
This essay explores an emergent black atheist, secular humanist, and naturalistic imagination. Based on a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that measured the percentage of African Americans holding such views, I refer to this group as "one percenters." Broadly speaking, one percenters view human nature and destiny (necessity and historical contingency) through an anthropological rather than a theological lens. As three pers…
Naturalizing Christian Ethics: A Critique of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age
This essay critically engages the concept of transcendence in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age . I explore his definition of transcendence, its role in holding a modernity‐inspired nihilism at bay, and how it is crucial to the Christian antihumanist argument that he makes. In the process, I show how the critical power of this analysis depends heavily and paradoxically on the Nietzschean antihumanism that he otherwise rejects. Through an account of …
What is Theory
Believing and Acting (2012) is equally erudite and witty. Known for his good humor, Davis uses wit to make the medicine he dispenses go down more easily. For the patient—that is, scholars engaged in the study of religion who are concerned about proper “methods and approaches”—the prognosis is rather good. But Davis’s wit, I suspect, may also encourage us to move too quickly past some of the claims that he makes. I wish to explore one such claim, …
Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion
Afro-Eccentricity explores three overlapping stories of Black Religion: the Soul, Black Church, and Ancestor Narratives. Hart contends that these narratives dominate most accounts of Black Religion th
Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis
This book explores the spiritual dimensions (political, racial, sexual, and violent) of Malcolm X's journey from Christianity to Islam, Julius Lester's journey from Christianity to Judaism, and Jan Wi
Minimal Theologies: Critiques of Secular Reason in Adorno and Levinas. By Hent de Vries
De Vries' thesis is that theology, minimally understood, is an unavoidable supplement to critical thought; indeed, secular reason makes claims for which it cannot give an adequate account on its own terms. It depends on the “other of reason,” on religious figures of speech that supplement its every claim. Secular reason is parasitic on or in symbiosis with (depending on your view) theological minimalism, that is, with the trace of reason's transc…
One Percenters: Black Atheists, Secular Humanists, and Naturalists
This essay explores an emergent black atheist, secular humanist, and naturalistic imagination. Based on a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that measured the percentage of African Americans holding such views, I refer to this group as "one percenters." Broadly speaking, one percenters view human nature and destiny (necessity and historical contingency) through an anthropological rather than a theological lens. As three pers…
Minimal Theologies: Critiques of Secular Reason in Adorno and Levinas. By Hent de Vries
De Vries' thesis is that theology, minimally understood, is an unavoidable supplement to critical thought; indeed, secular reason makes claims for which it cannot give an adequate account on its own terms. It depends on the “other of reason,” on religious figures of speech that supplement its every claim. Secular reason is parasitic on or in symbiosis with (depending on your view) theological minimalism, that is, with the trace of reason's transc…
Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester, and Jan Willis
This book explores the spiritual dimensions (political, racial, sexual, and violent) of Malcolm X's journey from Christianity to Islam, Julius Lester's journey from Christianity to Judaism, and Jan Wi
Afro-Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion
Afro-Eccentricity explores three overlapping stories of Black Religion: the Soul, Black Church, and Ancestor Narratives. Hart contends that these narratives dominate most accounts of Black Religion th
Naturalizing Christian Ethics: A Critique of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age
This essay critically engages the concept of transcendence in Charles Taylor's A Secular Age . I explore his definition of transcendence, its role in holding a modernity‐inspired nihilism at bay, and how it is crucial to the Christian antihumanist argument that he makes. In the process, I show how the critical power of this analysis depends heavily and paradoxically on the Nietzschean antihumanism that he otherwise rejects. Through an account of …
What is Theory
Believing and Acting (2012) is equally erudite and witty. Known for his good humor, Davis uses wit to make the medicine he dispenses go down more easily. For the patient—that is, scholars engaged in the study of religion who are concerned about proper “methods and approaches”—the prognosis is rather good. But Davis’s wit, I suspect, may also encourage us to move too quickly past some of the claims that he makes. I wish to explore one such claim, …
One Percenters: Black Atheists, Secular Humanists, and Naturalists
This essay explores an emergent black atheist, secular humanist, and naturalistic imagination. Based on a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that measured the percentage of African Americans holding such views, I refer to this group as "one percenters." Broadly speaking, one percenters view human nature and destiny (necessity and historical contingency) through an anthropological rather than a theological lens. As three pers…
Slaves, Fetuses, and Animals: Race and Ethical Rhetoric
This essay is an exploration in ethical rhetoric, specifically, the ethics of comparing the status of fetuses and animals to enslaved Africans. On the view of those who make such comparisons, the fetus is treated as a slave through abortion, reproductive technologies, and stem cell research, while animals are enslaved through factory farming, experimentation, and as laborers, circus performers, and the like. I explore how the apotheosis of the fe…
Constellations: Capitalism, Antiblackness, Afro-Pessimism, and Black Optimism
Research Article| January 01 2018 Constellations: Capitalism, Antiblackness, Afro-Pessimism, and Black Optimism William David Hart William David Hart Macalester College William Hart, professor and holder of the Margaret W. Harmon Chair at Macalester College, researches the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics. His current projects include an exploration of antiblackness within the theoretical discourse of black studies; a comparative an…
Debate, Prophecy, and Revolution: Notes on Cathleen Kaveny's Prophecy Without Contempt
In Prophecy without Contempt , Cathleen Kaveny argues that prevailing scholarly approaches to religious and public discourse misunderstand the actual complexity of moral rhetoric in America. She endeavors to provide a better account through study of the role the Puritan jeremiad has played. Kaveny then offers a normative case for deliberative public moral discourse and the limited exercise of prophetic denunciation. I argue that Kaveny's distinct…
Hope Draped in Black: Race, Melancholy, and the Agony of Progress. By Joseph R. Winters
This book explores a complex set of themes regarding black identity construction and the co-constitutive realities of melancholy and hope. On this view, black racial subjects are hopeful because of their melancholia and not in spite of it. Black hope sublates (aufheben) melancholy, that is, preserves, cancels, transforms, and lifts it higher. Melancholic hope represents a creative appropriation of Freud’s famous distinction between mourning and m…
The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse
This book explores the relations among blackness, antiblackness, and Black people within the discourse of the blackness of black. This critical discourse developed during the last two decades as scholars explored what Saidiya Hartman describes as the afterlife of slavery. Hartman’s concept, which argues for a troubling continuity between the status of enslaved and emancipated Black people, is the pivot between discursive tributaries and trajector…
Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger
Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger Pragmatism and Naturalism: Scientific and Social Inquiry after Representationalism. Edited by Matthew Bagger. Columbia University Press, 2018. 328 pages. $75.00 (hardcover), $74.99 (e-book). William David Hart William David Hart Macalester College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Ameri…
Afterlives of Slavery: Afrofuturism and Afropessimism as Parallax Views
If stars appear to change position, to be displaced when viewed from different point in the earth's orbit, then by analogy we might say that Afrofuturism and Afropessimism are parallax angles on the afterlife of slavery. Afrofuturism and Afropessimism inhabit forms of imaginative spacetime that are both congruent and incongruent. I will call the triangular relations among the afterlife of slavery, Afrofuturism, and Afropessimism, a “black mood.” …
Sense and Sensibility: IARPT's Four Existential Orientations
The concerns of the Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought are worlds apart from the preoccupations that animate the characters in Jane Austen's novels. This is not to say that IARPT is disinterested in romance, love, and heartbreak. It is to say, rather, that Sense and Sensibility, the title of Austen's 1811 novel, is a good cover term for the matters that I wish to address. I say this despite the fact that many characters in …
The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction
John Dewey's global influence is nowhere more apparent than in the uptake of his educational philosophy: from the United States to Brazil, Japan, and to many other destinations far and wide. We should not be surprised that Dewey's pragmatism or “instrumentalism,” as he sometimes called it, would gain a toehold within the Indian subcontinent. That toehold was established by his former student at Columbia University, Bhimrao Ambedkar, the leader of…
Philosophy (10 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Race, History, and American Society (6 works) · Theology (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Rhetoric (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)