Abstract
Mabogo Samuel More (also known as Percy Mabogo More) has pointed out the philosophical importance of Steve Biko’s thought in the areas of Africana existential philosophy, and social and political philosophy. In the latter, Biko’s thought is distinguished by his critique of liberalism and his discussions of the political and epistemic conditions for black liberation. As for the former, much is offered from his readings of Hege1, Marx, Sartre, and Fanon, and Biko’s own creative understanding of social identities formed by political practice, that is most acutely formulated in his theory of Black Consciousness. This gathering notion has generated discussion in terms of its existential dimensions in the work of Mabogo More and the resources of psychoanalysis and deconstruction in the writings of Rozena Maart. This short essay will add some thoughts on its phenomenological significance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Biko, Steve Bantu. 2002. I Write What I Like: Selected Writings, ed. with a personal memoir by Aelred Stubbs. Preface by Desmond Tutu. An intro. by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana. A new foreword by Lewis R. Gordon (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).
Bongmba, Elias Kifon. 2006. The Dialectics of Transformation in Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Comaroff, John L. and Jean Comaroff. 1997. Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).
—. 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 1, Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).
Desai, Ashwin. 2002. We Are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa. (New York: Monthly Review Press).
—. 2000. South Africa: Still Revolting (Johannesburg: Impact Africa Publishing).
—. 2000a. The Poors of Chatsworth: Race, Class and Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Durban, SA; Madiba Publishers).
Dussel, Enrique. 2003. Beyond Philosophy: Ethics, History, Marxism, and Liberation Theology, trans. and ed. Eduardo Mendieta (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).
—.1995. The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of “the Other” and the Myth of Modernity, trans. Michael D. Barber (New York: Continuum).
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Black Skin, White Masks, trans. by Charles Lamm Markman (New York: Grove Press).
—. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington. An intro. Jean-Paul Sartre (New York: Grove Press).
Gibson, Nigel, ed. 2005. Challenging Hegemony: Social Movements and the Quest for a New Humanism in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press).
—. 2003. Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press).
Gordon, Jane Anna. 2007. “The Gift of Double Consciousness: Some Obstacles to Grasping the Contributions of the Colonized,” in Postcolonialism and Political Theory, ed. Nalini Persram (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books), 143–161.
Gordon, Lewis R. 2008. An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press).
—. 2007. “Problematic People and Epistemic Decolonization: Toward the Postcolonial in Africana Political Thought,” in Postcolonialism and Political Theory, ed. Nalini Persram (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books), 121–141.
—. 2000. Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought (New York: Routledge).
Gyekye, Kwame. 1997. Tradition and Modernity, Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).
—. 1995/1987. An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme, revised edition (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press).
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friederich. 1989. Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Amherst, NY: Humanity/Prometheus Books).
—. 1979 [1807]. Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
—. 1967. Philosophy of Right, trans. with notes by T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon).
—. 1956. The Philosophy of History, with prefaces by Charles Hegel. Trans. J. Sibree. A new intro. C. J. Friedrich (New York: Dover Publications).
Maart, Rozena. 1990. Talk About It (Ontario, Canada: Williams-Wallace Publishers).
—. 2004. Rosa’s District Six (Toronto, Canada: Tsar Publications).
—. 2006. The Politics of Consciousness, the Consciousness of Politics: When Black Consciousness Meets White Consciousness, vol. 1, The Interrogation of Writing (Guelph, Canada: Awomandla Publishers).
—. 2006a. The Politics of Consciousness, the Consciousness of Politics: When Black Consciousness Meets White Consciousness, vol. 2, The Research Settings, the Interrogation of Speech and Imagination (Guelph, Canada: Awomandla Publishers).
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
More, Mabogo P. Samuel. 2004. “Philosophy in South Africa Under and After Apartheid,” in A Companion toAfrican Philosophy, ed. Wiredu (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 149–160.
—. 2004a. “Albert Luthuli, Steve Biko, and Nelson Mandela: The Philosophical Basis of their Thought and Practice,” in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. Wiredu (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers), 207–215.
—. 2004b. “Biko: Africana Existentialist Philosopher,” Alternation11, no. 1: 79–108.
Nirenberg, David. 2007. “Race and the Middle Ages: The Case of Spain and Its Jews,” in Rereading the Black legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, eds. Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maueen Quilligan (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2007), 71–87.
Pithouse, Richard. 2006. Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press).
Robinson, Cedric, 2001. An Anthropology ofMarxism (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate).
Roos, Neil. 2005. Ordinary Springboks: White Servicemen and Social Justice in South Africa, 1939–1961 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate).
Van Sertima, Ivan, ed. 1992. Golden Age of the Moor (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel C. Gibson
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gordon, L.R. (2008). A Phenomenology of Biko’s Black Consciousness. In: Mngxitama, A., Alexander, A., Gibson, N.C. (eds) Biko Lives!. Contemporary Black History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230613379_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230613379_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-60649-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61337-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)