Frank B. Wilderson in conversation with Justin Desmangles, discusses his latest work, Afropessimism
Channel: San Francisco Public Library
Date: 2021-07-17

A partnership with the Before Columbus Foundation 

Frank B. Wilderson in conversation with Justin Desmangles, discusses his latest work, Afropessimism.
Frank B. Wilderson III is an American writer, dramatist, filmmaker and critic. He is a full professor of drama and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine. He received his BA in government and philosophy from Dartmouth College, his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and his PhD in rhetoric and film studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Combining precise philosophy with a torrent of memories, Wilderson presents the tenets of an increasingly prominent intellectual movement that sees Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Drawing on works of philosophy, literature, film, and critical theory, he shows that the social construct of slavery, as seen through pervasive anti-Black subjugation and violence, is hardly a relic of the past but the very engine that powers our civilization, and that without this master-slave dynamic, the calculus bolstering world civilization would collapse.

Justin Desmangles is chairman of the Before Columbus Foundation, administrator of the American Book Award.