Benjamin P Davis
Biographic Data
| ID | 454459 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin P Davis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin P |
| FAMILY NAME | Davis |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIS B P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4737-2181 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Kersuze Simeon-Jones’s Sober and Cool Philosophy in advance: Sketches on the Black Intellectual Tradition
In this essay, Benjamin P. Davis highlights the “art of living” offered in Kersuze Simeon-Jones’s two recent books, The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought and Black Femalehood and the Principles of Existence in Practice. In this way, Davis suggests that Simeon-Jones, especially in her focus on simplicity and sobriety, offers a contemporary practice of thinking that maintains the ancient sense of philosophy as a way of life. She thus…
Another Humanity: Decolonial Ethics from Du Bois to Arendt
Is there a way of being human that could invite people away from today’s models of violence and consumerism? Looking forward to a new, increasingly creolized century, in 1997 the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asked, ‘Do we have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?’ In this book, a sequel to Choose Your Bearing , Benjamin P. Davis looks to W. E. B. Du Bois, Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, and …
Another Humanity: Decolonial Ethics from Du Bois to Arendt
Is there a way of being human that could invite people away from today’s models of violence and consumerism? Looking forward to a new, increasingly creolized century, in 1997 the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asked, ‘Do we have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?’ Building on the defense of human rights he outlined in Choose Your Bearing , Benjamin P. Davis traces figures of 'the human' and ‘…
Toward Critical Belonging: Heidegger, Arendt, and Glissant’s Other of Thought
In this essay, Benjamin P. Davis responds to Jared Highlen’s review essay, ‘Entanglement as Responsibility: Decolonizing Human Rights in Choose Your Bearing ’. Davis draws out Louiza Odysseos’s concept of ‘critical belonging’ in dialogue with Glissant and Arendt to argue for a sense of difference that inspires action
Kathryn Lawson. Ecological Ethics and the Philosophy of Simone Weil: Decreation for the Anthropocene
A Deeper Symbolic Transcendence: Toward a Planetary Dialogue with Enrique Dussel
Edward Said’s Archive: Toward Postcolonial Theory
In order to consider the history of varying relationships between Marxism and post-colonial theory, the author examines sources from Edward Said’s archive housed at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. He considers patterns wherein academic institutions in the Global North archive collections from or about the Global South. Thus, this essay investigates questions of history, responsibility, and coloniality in material collection,…
The World as Abyss: The Caribbean and Critical Thought in the Anthropocene, by Jonathan Pugh & David Chandler
The visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the power of philosophy in dark times
On Conceptual Sufficiency: Humanity in Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction and John Brown
In this essay, I read Stuart Hall’s idea of “politics without guarantees” as meaning that all concepts are saturated with history and that no use of a concept can prevent it from being co-opted. The contribution of this reading is that it shifts the task of critical theory: if all concepts carry limitations and can be used to advance domination, then critical theorists need not search for pure concepts or worry about how to prevent our concepts f…
Simone Weil's Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins
This book argues that Simone Weil's short life (1909-1943) is best understood as deeply invested in and engaged with the world around her, which she knew she would leave behind sooner rather than later if she took risks on the side of the oppressed. To present Weil first and foremost as a political philosopher, Benjamin Davis places her work in conversation with feminist philosophy, decolonial philosophy, and Marxism. Against the backdrop of Weil…
Knowing Native Arts by Nancy Marie Mithlo
Reviewed by: Knowing Native Arts by Nancy Marie Mithlo Benjamin P. Davis Nancy Marie Mithlo. Knowing Native Arts. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. 272 pp. Hardcover, $34.95. Knowing Native Arts, an essay collection spanning thirty-five years of scholarship, makes several contributions. Scholars studying the art of Emily Arthur, Marie Watt, Tom Jones, Edward Curtis, and Jimmie Durham will gain from how Nancy Mithlo reads these texts wi…
Simone Weil’s Method: Essaying Reality through Inquiry and Action
I read a selection of Simone Weil’s political philosophy in the way that she reads Marx – as forming “not a doctrine but a method of understanding and action.” My claim is that Weil’s method is likewise twofold: she attempts to understand the world through inquiry, then she tests her understanding through action. First, I read “Reflections Concerning the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression” (1934). In that essay, inquiry, exemplified by Weil’…
Precarity and Resistance: A Critique of Martha Fineman's Vulnerability Theory
Contemporary feminist theory by and large agrees on criticizing the traditional, autonomous subject and instead maintains a relational, dependent self, but the vocabulary used to describe the latter remains contested. These contestations are seen in comparing the approach of some feminist legal theory, as demonstrated by Martha Fineman, to the approach of some feminist theory that draws on continental philosophy, as demonstrated by Judith Butler.…
What Could Human Rights Do? A Decolonial Inquiry
It is one thing to consider what human rights have been and another to inquire into what they could be. In this essay, I present a history of human rights vis-à-vis decolonization. I follow the scholarship of Samuel Moyn to suggest that human rights presented a “moral alternative” to political utopias. The question remains how to politicize the moral energy around human rights today. I argue that defending what Édouard Glissant calls a “right to …
The politics of positionality: The Difference Between Post-, Anti-, and De-Colonial Methods
This essay works at the intersection of two trends, one longstanding and one relatively more recent. First, it takes place against the background of the overwhelming influence that the category of 'identity' exercises on both contemporary knowledge production and political practice. Second, it responds to what has been called the 'decolonial turn' in theory. We compare the work of Gayatri Spivak, Aijaz Ahmad, and Walter Mignolo in terms of the fo…
Globalization/Coloniality: A Decolonial Definition and Diagnosis
In this essay, I contend that globalization is less an international process and more a colonial project. I argue that definitions of “globalization” articulated primarily through economic metrics insufficiently account for the violences concomitant with such a project. In response to this insufficiency, I draw on three concepts by three decolonial authors—transmodernity (Enrique Dussel), global coloniality (Aníbal Quijano), and dialogical cosmop…
Decreation and the ethical bind: Simone Weil and the claim of the other
Decreation and the ethical bind: Simone Weil and the claim of the other." Political Theology, 19(2), pp. 164–165
Seven Ways of Looking at Religion: The Major Narratives . by Benjamin Schewel
“[I]t is not yet clear,” Benjamin Schewel contends, “what kind of narrative we should be telling” (2). “[T]he contemporary academic discourse on religion,” he argues, “is severely hindered by our lack of a broader, synthetic narrative paradigm” (9). Filling our lack in this unclear context, Schewel advances a narrative-based approach to religion that encompasses the basic claims, logic, and utilization of each “way.” For Schewel, the kind of “way…
Survival and accumulation in Gutu: Class formation and the rise of the state in colonial Zimbabwe, 1900-1939
The politics of positionality: The Difference Between Post-, Anti-, and De-Colonial Methods
This essay works at the intersection of two trends, one longstanding and one relatively more recent. First, it takes place against the background of the overwhelming influence that the category of 'identity' exercises on both contemporary knowledge production and political practice. Second, it responds to what has been called the 'decolonial turn' in theory. We compare the work of Gayatri Spivak, Aijaz Ahmad, and Walter Mignolo in terms of the fo…
Survival and accumulation in Gutu: Class formation and the rise of the state in colonial Zimbabwe, 1900-1939
Precarity and Resistance: A Critique of Martha Fineman's Vulnerability Theory
Contemporary feminist theory by and large agrees on criticizing the traditional, autonomous subject and instead maintains a relational, dependent self, but the vocabulary used to describe the latter remains contested. These contestations are seen in comparing the approach of some feminist legal theory, as demonstrated by Martha Fineman, to the approach of some feminist theory that draws on continental philosophy, as demonstrated by Judith Butler.…
What Could Human Rights Do? A Decolonial Inquiry
It is one thing to consider what human rights have been and another to inquire into what they could be. In this essay, I present a history of human rights vis-à-vis decolonization. I follow the scholarship of Samuel Moyn to suggest that human rights presented a “moral alternative” to political utopias. The question remains how to politicize the moral energy around human rights today. I argue that defending what Édouard Glissant calls a “right to …
Globalization/Coloniality: A Decolonial Definition and Diagnosis
In this essay, I contend that globalization is less an international process and more a colonial project. I argue that definitions of “globalization” articulated primarily through economic metrics insufficiently account for the violences concomitant with such a project. In response to this insufficiency, I draw on three concepts by three decolonial authors—transmodernity (Enrique Dussel), global coloniality (Aníbal Quijano), and dialogical cosmop…
Survival and accumulation in Gutu: Class formation and the rise of the state in colonial Zimbabwe, 1900-1939
Globalization/Coloniality: A Decolonial Definition and Diagnosis
In this essay, I contend that globalization is less an international process and more a colonial project. I argue that definitions of “globalization” articulated primarily through economic metrics insufficiently account for the violences concomitant with such a project. In response to this insufficiency, I draw on three concepts by three decolonial authors—transmodernity (Enrique Dussel), global coloniality (Aníbal Quijano), and dialogical cosmop…
Decreation and the ethical bind: Simone Weil and the claim of the other
Decreation and the ethical bind: Simone Weil and the claim of the other." Political Theology, 19(2), pp. 164–165
Seven Ways of Looking at Religion: The Major Narratives . by Benjamin Schewel
“[I]t is not yet clear,” Benjamin Schewel contends, “what kind of narrative we should be telling” (2). “[T]he contemporary academic discourse on religion,” he argues, “is severely hindered by our lack of a broader, synthetic narrative paradigm” (9). Filling our lack in this unclear context, Schewel advances a narrative-based approach to religion that encompasses the basic claims, logic, and utilization of each “way.” For Schewel, the kind of “way…
What Could Human Rights Do? A Decolonial Inquiry
It is one thing to consider what human rights have been and another to inquire into what they could be. In this essay, I present a history of human rights vis-à-vis decolonization. I follow the scholarship of Samuel Moyn to suggest that human rights presented a “moral alternative” to political utopias. The question remains how to politicize the moral energy around human rights today. I argue that defending what Édouard Glissant calls a “right to …
The politics of positionality: The Difference Between Post-, Anti-, and De-Colonial Methods
This essay works at the intersection of two trends, one longstanding and one relatively more recent. First, it takes place against the background of the overwhelming influence that the category of 'identity' exercises on both contemporary knowledge production and political practice. Second, it responds to what has been called the 'decolonial turn' in theory. We compare the work of Gayatri Spivak, Aijaz Ahmad, and Walter Mignolo in terms of the fo…
Simone Weil’s Method: Essaying Reality through Inquiry and Action
I read a selection of Simone Weil’s political philosophy in the way that she reads Marx – as forming “not a doctrine but a method of understanding and action.” My claim is that Weil’s method is likewise twofold: she attempts to understand the world through inquiry, then she tests her understanding through action. First, I read “Reflections Concerning the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression” (1934). In that essay, inquiry, exemplified by Weil’…
Precarity and Resistance: A Critique of Martha Fineman's Vulnerability Theory
Contemporary feminist theory by and large agrees on criticizing the traditional, autonomous subject and instead maintains a relational, dependent self, but the vocabulary used to describe the latter remains contested. These contestations are seen in comparing the approach of some feminist legal theory, as demonstrated by Martha Fineman, to the approach of some feminist theory that draws on continental philosophy, as demonstrated by Judith Butler.…
Knowing Native Arts by Nancy Marie Mithlo
Reviewed by: Knowing Native Arts by Nancy Marie Mithlo Benjamin P. Davis Nancy Marie Mithlo. Knowing Native Arts. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. 272 pp. Hardcover, $34.95. Knowing Native Arts, an essay collection spanning thirty-five years of scholarship, makes several contributions. Scholars studying the art of Emily Arthur, Marie Watt, Tom Jones, Edward Curtis, and Jimmie Durham will gain from how Nancy Mithlo reads these texts wi…
On Conceptual Sufficiency: Humanity in Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction and John Brown
In this essay, I read Stuart Hall’s idea of “politics without guarantees” as meaning that all concepts are saturated with history and that no use of a concept can prevent it from being co-opted. The contribution of this reading is that it shifts the task of critical theory: if all concepts carry limitations and can be used to advance domination, then critical theorists need not search for pure concepts or worry about how to prevent our concepts f…
Simone Weil's Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins
This book argues that Simone Weil's short life (1909-1943) is best understood as deeply invested in and engaged with the world around her, which she knew she would leave behind sooner rather than later if she took risks on the side of the oppressed. To present Weil first and foremost as a political philosopher, Benjamin Davis places her work in conversation with feminist philosophy, decolonial philosophy, and Marxism. Against the backdrop of Weil…
Edward Said’s Archive: Toward Postcolonial Theory
In order to consider the history of varying relationships between Marxism and post-colonial theory, the author examines sources from Edward Said’s archive housed at Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. He considers patterns wherein academic institutions in the Global North archive collections from or about the Global South. Thus, this essay investigates questions of history, responsibility, and coloniality in material collection,…
The World as Abyss: The Caribbean and Critical Thought in the Anthropocene, by Jonathan Pugh & David Chandler
The visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the power of philosophy in dark times
Another Humanity: Decolonial Ethics from Du Bois to Arendt
Is there a way of being human that could invite people away from today’s models of violence and consumerism? Looking forward to a new, increasingly creolized century, in 1997 the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asked, ‘Do we have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?’ In this book, a sequel to Choose Your Bearing , Benjamin P. Davis looks to W. E. B. Du Bois, Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, and …
Another Humanity: Decolonial Ethics from Du Bois to Arendt
Is there a way of being human that could invite people away from today’s models of violence and consumerism? Looking forward to a new, increasingly creolized century, in 1997 the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant asked, ‘Do we have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?’ Building on the defense of human rights he outlined in Choose Your Bearing , Benjamin P. Davis traces figures of 'the human' and ‘…
Toward Critical Belonging: Heidegger, Arendt, and Glissant’s Other of Thought
In this essay, Benjamin P. Davis responds to Jared Highlen’s review essay, ‘Entanglement as Responsibility: Decolonizing Human Rights in Choose Your Bearing ’. Davis draws out Louiza Odysseos’s concept of ‘critical belonging’ in dialogue with Glissant and Arendt to argue for a sense of difference that inspires action
Kathryn Lawson. Ecological Ethics and the Philosophy of Simone Weil: Decreation for the Anthropocene
A Deeper Symbolic Transcendence: Toward a Planetary Dialogue with Enrique Dussel
Kersuze Simeon-Jones’s Sober and Cool Philosophy in advance: Sketches on the Black Intellectual Tradition
In this essay, Benjamin P. Davis highlights the “art of living” offered in Kersuze Simeon-Jones’s two recent books, The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought and Black Femalehood and the Principles of Existence in Practice. In this way, Davis suggests that Simeon-Jones, especially in her focus on simplicity and sobriety, offers a contemporary practice of thinking that maintains the ancient sense of philosophy as a way of life. She thus…
Philosophy (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy (5 works) · History (5 works)