Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis by Katherine McKittrick

Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis Reviews

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  Kristine

  👤🧑🏿💭🗯⛪️🏝🧬🗝 [collection was a bit uneven]
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  caroline

  Some of these essays were incredible, and the work of Sylvia Wynter in general is extraordinarily rich, complex, revealing, and thorough. I especially enjoyed the conversations between McKittrick and Wynter at the beginning. I’m knocking off a star because a few of the essays were underdeveloped and didn’t seem to touch much on Wynter’s work.
• 
  Toye

  The Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick sections were absolutely amazing, after reading this I'm putting Wynter up there with Jameson as maybe one of the most important philosophers of our time (even though her arguments are quite contingent on other fields). Along with the other essays of hers I've read she's massively changed the way I look at humanity, language, race, gender, and any number of socio-biological positions.
  
  Her basic argument that 1) Western thought hugely over privileges biological factors and believes itself to be purely scientific because it is the first tradition to be partically scientific (in the modern sense) and that 2) consciousness is (probably, she wagers) composed of how language interacts with our bodies and has the ability to selectively override biological / genetic factors [which no other species can do] , especially through epistemes and group narratives. She's basically arguing that Fanon's school of thought has been hugely neglected in terms of what it's potential implications are, and this is where 'being human as praxis' comes from - that Fanonian concept of sociogeny means that different modes (genres Wynter calls them) of being human are always praxis, they are always the physical acting out of language based instructions.
  
  This has intersections with economics - (and how homo economicus has become one of the dominant frameworks of understanding the human mind) - biology - (and how social Darwinism and other forms of eugenics show that the story of evolution in modern terms functions as a kind of origin myth which can be selectively applied to justify hierarchy) - philosophy, history, Marxism, and pretty much anything you can think of. She takes a lot from Fanon and Cesaire. Good stuff. the other essays were a bit boring but I think I lack the background in critical theory that I need to understand them. There's definitely some big gaps in her theory (as I currently understand it) but in terms of being groundbreaking she's in the highest tier of philosophers in my book. The book gets a five stars despite these flaws because genius always deserves five stars, and Sylvia Wynter is genius.
• 
  Mars

  The knowledge given, questions asked, and analytical frameworks articulated in this book are simply astonishing. Sylvia Wynter brilliantly ties together many strains of thought (neuroscience, psychology, sociology, natural science, philosophy, art/culture, anti-colonialism, etc.) into a profound vision, mission, and challenge for achieving human liberation. For those who have the patience and desire, I feel this is a necessary text for anyone committed to transformative justice. Fair warning -Wynter, McKittrick and the other writers included in this collection of essays exist in and write from the purview of academia - so, regrettably, language is dense and concepts are complex. But even seeing this sort of writing and thinking happening gives me enormous hope because if such radical, liberatory practices can be conceptualized, they are already being put into practice. This book reinvigorated many of my dreams for our species and our world - I am excited to see how more writers, thinkers, activists, artists, creatives, and dreamers will express and live the contents of this book, simply in their being human.
• 
  Scott Neigh

  Scholarly. Focused on the work of radical Jamaican intellectual Sylvia Wynter. Includes a lengthy dialogue between the editor and Wynter that explores key elements of her work and thought, and then a series of essays which do a mix of laying out the basics, applying her work in specific areas, and extending it in various ways. I read this to get an introduction to Wynter's ideas, which I had encountered in passing in a number of things I've read in the last few years but wanted to understand better because I may want to take up aspects of what she says in the chapter I'm writing at the moment.
  
  My inclination and my historical practice when reviewing a book like this has often been to dive in and engage with its ideas in as substantive a way as I have time for, to compensate for the fact that I do this work outside of any sort of collective setting so have no opportunity for any of the other kinds of engagement that can help cement understanding and memory. I've done that quite a bit less in recent years, and I don't think I will in this case, mostly because I'm already planning on engaging more deeply with at least some elements of it as I work through how to write my chapter. I will say that I'm very, very glad to have read this. There are quite a few of her key ideas that I find to be compelling, particularly the big picture stuff about what it means to be human, about the colonial/imperial origins of the social world and our practices of knowing, and about what that means for our violent and oppressive world today. There are some specifics in her theorization of *how* genres of the human take and maintain particular forms that I'm less convinced of, though for the most part in ways that don't intrinsically undermine the bigger picture. As well, the ways that the other contributors extend her ideas are a bit uneven – no surprise, in a collection like this – but the majority are interesting and useful. And I feel quite uncertain about the implications of Wynter's analysis for what we need to be doing here, now, together to create a world that is no longer under the dominion of Man but that fosters the flourishing of Wynter's ecumenical vision of humanity.
  
  Anyway. This is vital, radical, fascinating work. It's a *lot* – it wasn't a particularly difficult read, but I read it relatively slowly just because there was so much to think about. And, honestly, I think I'm only at the very beginning of grappling with the implications of these ideas, and with how they might shape our practices of being in and changing the world.
• 
  Mike

  A challenging read written for an academic audience, this book engages the work of a number of Caribbean thinkers (especially Sylvia Wynter, for obvious reasons but notably Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon, among others).
  
  Making it through the second chapter (a lengthy "interview" between McKittrick and Wynter based on a series of written and spoken interactions) is a slog. Wynter's ideas there are complex and encompassing, but perseverance is rewarded in subsequent chapters written by other contributors who help to provide context and critique of Wynter's impressive and expansive canon.
  
  A tough, although worthwhile, primer on Wynter and Caribbean post-/de-colonial thought.
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  Stephanie

  probably one of the most impactful pieces of theory i’ve ever read; approachable (in my opinion) and well written. this was my gateway into afropessimism and biopolitics, and investigating the ontological aspect of racial capitalism. was also my gateway into epistemological theory, and investigating constructed categories and how theyre used. (concepts like violence, democracy, authoritarian)
• 
  Christina Olivares

  Sylvia Wynter is amazing, as is this book of critical scholarship about her thinking.
• 
  Ella Louise Schalski

  Read for school.
• 
  Terra Holman

  Finally finished the final essay!
  
  One of the most complex books I've ever read and also one of the most life changing. Paradigm shifted.
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  Nyasha Mboti

  Exceptional book!
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  Hannah Krohn

  McKittrick is a good primer accordiwng to Mackenzie Smith
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  Rianna Jade

  I need to spend some time with her original writing.
• 
  Robert J.

  Stunning work
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  Ayanna Dozier

  Katherine McKittrick’s edited volume on Sylvia Wynter is a must-read for scholars interested in philosophy, race, value-theory, and the question of the human. Prefaced by an engrossing seventy-five page “conversation” (it’s really just Sylvia Wynter responding to a series of questions by McKittrick), the book brings together establish Black studies scholars to discuss core concepts/recurring motifs in Sylvia Wynter’s work. The essays themselves are designated to help scholars studying Wynter deconstruct and understand her work. This is critical as Wynter is not a scholar in which the terms accessible or easy would be used to describe her work. Additionally, this edited volume serves a dual propose by cementing Wynter’s research as worthy of further scholarship by emerging and established scholars alike. For scholars who desire more of Wynter’s work first hand, the opening conversation between Wynter and McKittrick is particularly rich as Wynter conducts a comprehensive study of her own work and asks the critical question of where do we go from here?
  
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  Mills College Library

  300.1 S985 2015