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Page Turners (GSJ of Oct. 5, 2001)
Read any good books lately? Share your book recommendations with other Brunonians by sending e-mail to Events@brown.edu. Be sure to include your name, your title and department, the name of the book and author, and your brief critique. This week's page turners are:
 Lewis Gordon (left), professor, Africana studies:
• "Racist America" by Joe Feagin: "The author brings together more than a century of the best research on race and racism in the United States, and provides the background for some of the most provocative contemporary debates, including institutional racism and reparations. For example, instead of the usual focus on the various amendments to the U.S. Constitution, he also looks at the original articles and shows how they were designed to create a society governed by a white propertied class and the maintenance of black inferiority. He also provides examples of unjust enrichment that continue, and looks at the complexity of racial profiling through his skills as an ethnographer."
• "Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy" by Paget Henry: "This book is the leading text in Afro-Caribbean philosophy. Basing his discussion on the complexity of African creolization in the Caribbean, Henry issues a tour-de-force treatment of Caribbean and Africana thought over the past 500 years. Particularly striking are the detailed studies of such giant thinkers as C.L.R. James (the revolutionary political thinker, novelist, and playwright), Frantz Fanon (the revolutionary psychiatrist, political thinker, and philosopher), Wilson Harris (the novelist, playwright, and philosopher), Sylvia Wynter (the novelist, literary critic, and philosopher), and the many engagements with the major developments in the history of ideas and in philosophy. There is a spectacular chapter on Jurgen Habermas, the famed German social theorist, and mythic consciousness."
Felicia Ackerman, professor, philosophy:
• "Le Morte D'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory: "This book has the most beautiful writing imaginable, plus a wonderful and refreshing perspective. For example, when Palomides hears Epinogrus making 'the greatest dole that ever he heard man make,' he doesn't tell Epingrous to look on the bright side or reproach him for wallowing in self-pity. Instead, he suggests, 'let us complain either to other.'"
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