Acknowledgments ix

1. Yours in the Intellectual Struggle: Sylvia Wynter and the Realization of the Living / Katherine McKittrick 1

2. Unparalleled Catastrophe for Our Species? Or, to Give Humanness a Different Future: Conversations / Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick 9

3. Before Man: Sylvia Wynter's Rewriting of the Modern Episteme / Denise Ferreira da Silva 90

4. Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human? / Walter D. Mignolo 106

5. Still Submerged: The Uninhabitability of Urban Redevelopment / Bench Ansfield 124

6. Axis, Bold as Love: On Sylvia Wynter, Jimi Hendrix, and the Promise of Science / Katherine McKittrick 142

7. Strategic Anti-Essentialism: Decolonizing Decolinization / Nandita Sharma 164

8. Genres of Human: Multiculturalism, Cosmo-politics, and the Caribbean Basin / Rinaldo Walcott 183

9. From Masquerade to Maskarade: Caribbean Cultural Resistance and the Rehumanizing Project / Carole Boyce Davies 203

10. "Come on Kid, Let's Go Get the Thing": The Sociogenic Principle and the Being of Being Black / Demetrius L. Eudell 226

Bibliography 249

Contributors 275

Index 277

Katherine McKittrick

Sylvia Wynter

Denise Ferreira da Silva

Walter D. Mignolo

Bench Ansfield

Nandita Sharma

Rinaldo Walcott

Carole Boyce Davies

Demetrius L. Eudell

"[On] Being Human as Praxis is a major contribution to growing efforts to bring Sylvia Wynter’s critical thought to the fore of contemporary critical social theory. The collection secures Wynter’s status as a heretical intellectual insisting on the relevance of the radical Black/Caribbean decolonial tradition to the systemic crises of the early 21st century planet."  — Anthony Bayani Rodriguez, Antipode

"In their combination, and in their resonance with Wynter’s intricate and expansive opening meditation on race, science, and human being, these essays present a complex and coherent intellectual project, at once deeply rooted and generously rhizomic." — Kaiama L. Glover, Contemporary Women's Writing

"All essays in this volume reflect upon Wynter’s hermetic theoretical thoughts and guide the reader through her concept of humanism. Here, McKittrick’s introductory interview serves as a point of reference and allows Wynter herself to participate in this process. On Being Human opens up unique perspectives on discourses of modern society" — Lea Hülsen, KULT online

"McKittrick’s collection is rich with insights that, in the spirit of Wynter’s work, can help to reshape urgent conversations by compelling us to ask different questions from different starting points." — S. Trimble, New Formations

"[On] Being Human as Praxis is a major contribution to growing efforts to bring Sylvia Wynter’s critical thought to the fore of contemporary critical social theory. The collection secures Wynter’s status as a heretical intellectual insisting on the relevance of the radical Black/Caribbean decolonial tradition to the systemic crises of the early 21st century planet."  —Anthony Bayani Rodriguez, Antipode

"In their combination, and in their resonance with Wynter’s intricate and expansive opening meditation on race, science, and human being, these essays present a complex and coherent intellectual project, at once deeply rooted and generously rhizomic." —Kaiama L. Glover, Contemporary Women's Writing

"All essays in this volume reflect upon Wynter’s hermetic theoretical thoughts and guide the reader through her concept of humanism. Here, McKittrick’s introductory interview serves as a point of reference and allows Wynter herself to participate in this process. On Being Human opens up unique perspectives on discourses of modern society" —Lea Hülsen, KULT online

"McKittrick’s collection is rich with insights that, in the spirit of Wynter’s work, can help to reshape urgent conversations by compelling us to ask different questions from different starting points." —S. Trimble, New Formations

"The magic of human life, suspended in the strife between terror and beauty, exhaustion and sustenance, carnage and carnival, has never been more fully and richly illuminated than in the priceless oeuvre of Sylvia Wynter. Thanks to Katherine McKittrick, that work receives its own full and rich illumination in a rigorous, intellectually expansive, and beautifully written set of essays that extends Wynter’s commitment to human life and the earth that bears it."
— Fred Moten, author of B Jenkins

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