Partisan universalism : essays in honour of Ato Sekyi-Otu

This collection of essays celebrates the work of Ato Sekyi-Otu as a scholar, teacher and friend, marking his extraordinary contribution to the philosophy, politics and praxis of liberation. As Ato Sekyi-Otu has argued in his most recent book, Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays (Routlege 2019), universalism is an ‘inescapable presupposition of ethical judgment in general and critique in particular, especially indispensable for radical criticism of conditions of existence in postcolonial society and for vindicating visions of social regeneration’. Universalism must and can only be partisan. Edited by Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Sofia Noori, the collection includes essays by Stefan Kipfler, Patrick Taylor, Sophie Mcall, Gamal Abdel-Shehid, Jeremy M. Glick, Nigel C. Gibson, Jeff Noonan, Esteve Morera, Tyler Gasteiger, Olúfeṃ́i Táíẃò, Susan Dianne Brophy, Nergis Canefe, Chistoher Balcom, Lewis Gordon, and by Ato Sekyi-Otu himself. "This book is a dedication to Ato Sekyi-Otu, the professor, mentor, and scholar. His students, colleagues and admirers have penned appreciation and critique of his writing, theories and extended implications of his decades of work. Sekyi-Otu’s most notable texts that are taken issue in this series are Fanon’s Dialectic of Experience (1996) and Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays (2019). The authors provide commentary and engage in perspectives that Sekyi-Otu provides a foundation for. The paradox of “left universalism” and “Africacentric” becomes a possible strategy in crafting an unrestricted, critically informed conception of recognition in the context of Indigenous, post-colonial African or Asian studies and oppressed groups of people. Sekyi-Otu’s idiosyncratic structural alignment to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit brings to light other interconnectivities such as Hegel’s undergird to the development of Fanonian ethnopsychiatry and the history of rationality. Sekyi-Otu helps readers better understand the tradition of political philosophy as a praxis for those who draw on his understandings of humanism and the complexities of universalist thought. His teachings impress upon us to think beyond the foundationalist claims of anticolonial theory and practice and the writers of this series have graciously taken his teaching to meet the questions of many contemporary and historical socio-political cleavages of thought."-- Provided by publisher Introduction: Gamal Abdel-Shehid Fanon for a post-imperial world: On universals and other human matters: Stefan Kipfer The Sea Menagerie: Esi Edugyan’s Atlantic: Patrick Taylor Reconsidering Fanon’s language of recognition in Indigenous studies: Sophie McCall On Fanon and Lacan: Continuities and structural psychiatry: Gamal Abdel-Shehid Aimé Césaire’s Two ways to lose yourself: The Exception and the rule: Jeremy M. Glick This Africa to Come: Nigel C. Gibson Speaking for, speaking through, speaking with: Abstract and concrete universality in the struggle for human emancipation: Jeff Noonan Universality: Notes towards rethinking the history of philosophy: Esteve Morera Husserl and Tran Duc Thao: Crisis, renewal, and the ontology of possibility: Tyler Gasteiger Can Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism take the individual seriously? Olúfeṃ́i Taíẃò ‘Innocuous Nihilism’, social reproduction and the terms of partisanship: Susan Dianne Brophy Marxism, Law and the Global South: Asiatic Mode of Production Debates, The Legal Subject and the Promise of Left Universalism: Nergis Canefe Universalism and immanent critique in ‘The End of Progress and Left Universalism’: Christopher Balcom CON-TEXTS OF CRITIQUE: Ato Sekyi-Otu Afterword: Lewis Gordon About the contributors