Kwame Anthony Appiah
Kwame Anthony Appiah race and identity theory |
---|
Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah
Personal life and education
Appiah was born in London, England,
Kwame Anthony Appiah was raised in
Appiah's mother's family has a long political tradition: Sir Stafford was a nephew of Beatrice Webb and was Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer (1947–1950) under Clement Attlee; his father, Charles Cripps, was Labour Leader of the House of Lords (1929–31) as Lord Parmoor in Ramsay MacDonald's government; Parmoor had been a Conservative MP before defecting to Labour.
Through his grandmother Isobel Cripps, Appiah is a descendant of John Winthrop and the New England Winthrop family of Boston Brahmins as one of his ancestors, Robert Winthrop, was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War and migrated to England, becoming a distinguished Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy.[9][10][failed verification] Through Isobel, he is also descended from the British pharmacist James Crossley Eno.
Through Professor Appiah's father, a
He lives with his husband, Henry Finder, an editorial director of The New Yorker,[11] in an apartment in Manhattan, and a home in Pennington, New Jersey with a small sheep farm.[6] Appiah has written about what it was like growing up gay in Ghana.[12]
Appiah became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1997.[13][14] His nephew is the actor Adetomiwa Edun.[15]
Career
Appiah taught philosophy and
His Cambridge dissertation explored the foundations of
In 2008, Appiah published Experiments in Ethics, in which he reviews the relevance of empirical research to ethical theory. In the same year, he was recognised for his contributions to racial, ethnic, and religious relations when Brandeis University awarded him the first Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize.[18]
As well as his academic work, Appiah has also published several works of fiction. His first novel, Avenging Angel, set at the University of Cambridge, involved a murder among the Cambridge Apostles; Sir Patrick Scott is the detective in the novel. Appiah's second and third novels are Nobody Likes Letitia and Another Death in Venice.
Appiah has been nominated for, or received, several honours. He was the 2009 finalist in the arts and humanities for the Eugene R. Gannon Award for the Continued Pursuit of Human Advancement.
Appiah currently chairs the jury for the Berggruen Prize, and serves on the Berggruen Institute's Philosophy & Culture Center's Academic Board.[22] He was elected as President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in January 2022.[5]
Ideas
Appiah argues that the formative
However, when capitalism is introduced and it does not "take off" as in the
If they will not, "we" are obliged to change their minds; if they cannot, "we" are obliged to provide assistance, but only our "fair share," that is, not at the expense of our own comfort, or the comfort of those "nearest and dearest" to us.[23]
Appiah's early philosophical work dealt with
On postmodern culture, Appiah writes, "Postmodern culture is the culture in which all postmodernisms operate, sometimes in synergy, sometimes in competition; and because contemporary culture is, in a certain sense to which I shall return, transnational, postmodern culture is global – though that emphatically does not mean that it is the culture of every person in the world."[24]
Cosmopolitanism
Appiah has been influenced by the
In his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006),[26] Appiah introduces two ideas that "intertwine in the notion of cosmopolitanism" (Emerging, 69). The first is the idea that we have obligations to others that are bigger than just sharing citizenship. The second idea is that we should never take for granted the value of life and become informed of the practices and beliefs of others. Kwame Appiah frequents university campuses to speak to students. One request he makes is, "See one movie with subtitles a month."[27]
In Lies that Bind (2018), Appiah attempts to deconstruct identities of creed, colour, country, and class.[28]
Criticism of Afrocentric world view
Appiah has been a critic of contemporary theories of Afrocentrism. In his 1997 essay "Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism", he argues that current Afrocentricism is striking for "how thoroughly at home it is in the frameworks of nineteenth century European thought", particularly as a mirror image to Eurocentric constructions of race and a preoccupation with the ancient world. Appiah also finds an irony in the conception that if the source of the West lies in ancient Egypt via Greece, then "its legacy of ethnocentrism is presumably one of our moral liabilities."[29]
In popular culture
- In 2007, Appiah was a contributing scholar in the PBS-broadcast documentary Prince Among Slaves produced by Unity Productions Foundation.[30]
- In 2007, he also appeared in the TV documentary series Racism: A History as an on-screen contributor.[31]
- Appiah appeared alongside a number of contemporary philosophers in Astra Taylor's 2008 film Examined Life, discussing his views on cosmopolitanism.
- In 2009, he was an on-screen contributor to the movie Herskovits: At the Heart of Blackness.[32]
- In 2015, he became one of three contributors to the
- He delivered the BBC's Reith Lectures in late 2016 on the theme of Mistaken Identities.[35]
- In late 2016, he contended that Western civilization did not exist, and argued that many uniquely Western attributes and values were instead shared among many "non-western" cultures and/or eras.[36]
- In 2018, Appiah appeared in the episode "Can We Live Forever?" of the documentary series Explained.[37]
Awards and honours
This section of a poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. )Find sources: "Kwame Anthony Appiah" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2020) |
- Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for In My Father's House, April 1993[38]
- Honorable Mention, James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association for In My Father's House, December 1993[39]
- 1993 Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association "for the best work published in English on Africa", for In My Father's House, December 1993[40]
- Annual Book Award, 1996, North American Society for Social Philosophy, "for the book making the most significant contribution to social philosophy" for Color Conscious, May 1997
- Ralph J. Bunche Award, American Political Science Association, "for the best scholarly work in political science which explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism" for Color Conscious, July 1997
- Outstanding Book on the subject of human rights in North America, Gustavus Myers Centerfor the Study of Human Rights in North America, for Color Conscious, 10 December 1997
- Elected member of the American Philosophical Society[41]
- Honorable Mention, Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights for The Ethics of Identity, 9 December 2005
- Editors' Choice New York Times Book Review, The Ethics of Identity, 26 June 2005.
- Amazon.comBest Books of 2005, Top 10 Editors' Picks: Nonfiction, The Ethics of Identity, December 2005
- Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations, Cosmopolitanism, May 2007
- Finalist for Estoril Global Ethics Book Prize, for Cosmopolitanism (2009)
- A Times Literary Supplement's Book of the Year 2010 for The Honor Code
- One of New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2010 for The Honor Code
- New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award 2011 for The Honor Code
- Global Thought Leaders Index 2015, No. 95, The World Post
- In August 2016, he was Ashanti people, in Nyaduom - his family's ancestral chiefdom in Ghana.
- In 2017 he was elected as a
- In June 2017 he was named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as one of its 2017 "Great Immigrants"[44][45]
- In December 2021, he received the prestigious Gold Medal from The National Institute of Social Sciences.
- In June 2022, Professor Appiah received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University. This is a degree that is bestowed upon people who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields.[46]
Bibliography
Books
- Assertion and Conditionals. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy Series. Cambridge Cambridgeshire New York: Cambridge University Press. 1985. ISBN 9780521304115.
- For Truth in Semantics. Philosophical Theory Series. Oxford, UK; New York, NY, USA: B. Blackwell. 1986. ISBN 9780631145967.
- Necessary Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 1989. ISBN 9780136113287.
- In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. London / New York: Methuen / Oxford University Press. 1992. ISBN 9780195068511.
- With ISBN 9780691026619.
- With Appiah, Peggy; Agyeman-Duah, Ivor (2007) [2002]. Bu me b?: Proverbs of the Akans (2nd ed.). Oxfordshire, UK: Ayebia Clarke. ISBN 9780955507922.
- Kosmopolitischer Patriotismus (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 2001. ISBN 9783518122303.
- With Gates Jr., Henry Louis, ed. (2003). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience: the concise desk reference. Philadelphia: Running Press. ISBN 9780762416424.
- Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy. Oxford New York: ISBN 9780195134582.
- The Ethics of Identity. Princeton, New Jersey: ISBN 9780691130286. Archived from the originalon 18 October 2006. Retrieved 11 January 2006.
- Translated as: La Ética de la identidad (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2007. ISBN 9788493543242.
- Translated as: La Ética de la identidad (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2007.
- Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2006. ISBN 9780141027814.
- Translated as: Cosmopolitismo: la ética en un mundo de extraños (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2007. ISBN 9788496859081.
- Translated as: Cosmopolitismo: la ética en un mundo de extraños (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2007.
- The Politics of Culture, the Politics of Identity. Toronto, Canada: ICC at the ISBN 9780888544643.
- Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2008. ISBN 9780674034570.
- Translated as: Experimentos de ética (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2010. ISBN 9788492946112.
- Translated as: Experimentos de ética (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2010.
- Mi cosmopolitismo (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Madrid: Katz Editores. 2008. ISBN 9788496859371. (En coedición con el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona.)
- The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen. New York: ISBN 9780393071627.
- Lines of Descent: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: ISBN 9780674419346.
- Kapai, Puja, ed. (2015). A Decent Respect: Honor in the Life of People and of Nations, Hochelaga Lectures 2015. Faculty of Law: University of Hong Kong. Original lecture.
- As If: Idealization and Ideals. Based on The 2013 Paul Carus Lectures. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.
- The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity—Creed, Country, Color, Class, Culture. London: Profile Books, 2018 and New York: Liveright Publishing, Profile Books, 2018 ISBN 978-1781259238, 978-1631493836
- Novels
- Avenging Angel. New York: ISBN 9780312058173.
- Nobody Likes Letitia. London: Constable. 1994. ISBN 9780094733008.
- Another Death in Venice. London: Constable. 1995. ISBN 9780094744301.
Book chapters
- Appiah, Anthony (1984), "Strictures on structures: the prospects for a structuralist poetics of African fiction", in Gates, Jr., Henry Louis (ed.), Black literature and literary theory, New York: Methuen, pp. 127–150, ISBN 9780415903349.
- Appiah, Anthony (1985), "Soyinka and the philosophy of culture", in Bodunrin, P.O. (ed.), Philosophy in Africa: trends and perspectives, Ile-Ife, Nigeria: ISBN 9789781360725.
- Appiah, Anthony (1987), "A long way from home: Richard Wright in the Gold Coast", in ISBN 9780877546399.
- Appiah, Anthony (1990), "Race", in Lentricchia, Frank; ISBN 9780226472027.
- Appiah, Anthony (1990), "Racisms", in ISBN 9780816618040.
- Appiah, Anthony (1991), "Tolerable falsehoods: agency and the interests of theory", in ISBN 9780801840456.
- Appiah, Anthony (1992), "Inventing an African practice in philosophy: epistemological issues", in ISBN 9780226545073.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1992), "Introduction", in ISBN 9780679446231.
- Appiah, Anthony (1992), "African identities", in Amselle, Jean-Loup; Appiah, Anthony; Bagayogo, Shaka; Chrétien, Jean-Pierre; Dakhlia, Jocelyne; ISBN 9782920576445. Fernande Saint-Martin sous la direction de Bogumil Jewsiewickiet Jocelyn Létourneau, Actes du Célat No. 6, Mai 1992.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Mudimbe, V. Y. (1993), "The impact of African studies on philosophy", in ISBN 9780226039015.
- Appiah, K. Anthony (1994), "Identity, authenticity, survival: multicultural societies and social reproduction", in Taylor, Charles; ISBN 9780691037790.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1995), "Philosophy and necessary questions", in Kwame, Safro (ed.), Readings in African philosophy: an Akan collection, Lanham: University Press of America, pp. 1–22, ISBN 9780819199119.
- Appiah, K. Anthony (1996), "Race, culture, identity: misunderstood connections", in Peterson, Grethe B. (ed.), ISBN 9780585197708. Pdf.
- Appiah, K. Anthony (1997), "African-American philosophy?", in Pittman, John (ed.), African-American perspectives and philosophical traditions, New York: Routledge, pp. 11–34, ISBN 9780415916400.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1997), "Europe upside down: fallacies of the new Afrocentrism", in Grinker, Roy Richard; Steiner, Christopher B. (eds.), Perspectives on Africa: a reader in culture, history, and representation, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, pp. 728–731, ISBN 9781557866868.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1997), "Is the 'post-' in 'postcolonial' the 'post-' in 'postmodern'?", in ISBN 9780816626496.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1996), "Identity: political not cultural", in ISBN 9780415914550.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1999), "Yambo Ouolouguem and the meaning of postcoloniality", in ISBN 9780894108617.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (2000), "Aufklärung und dialogue der kulturen", in Krull, Wilhelm (ed.), Zukunftsstreit (in German), Weilerwist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, pp. 305–328, ISBN 9783934730175.
- Appiah, K. Anthony (2001), "Grounding human rights", in ISBN 9780691114743.
- Appiah, K. Anthony (2001), "Stereotypes and the shaping of identity", in ISBN 9780822327134.
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (2002), "The State and the shaping of identity", in Peterson, Grethe B. (ed.),
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (2009), "Sen's identities", in ISBN 9780199239115.
Journal articles
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony (Winter 1981). "Structuralist criticism and African fiction: an analytic critique". Black American Literature Forum. 15 (4): 165–174. S2CID 149470070.
- — (October 1984). "An argument against anti-realist semantics". JSTOR 2254262.
- — (November 1984). "Generalising the probabilistic semantics of conditionals". S2CID 21407826.
- — (1 July 1985). "Verificationism and the manifestations of meaning". Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume. 59 (1): 17–31. .
- — (Autumn 1985). "The uncompleted argument: Du Bois and the illusion of race". Critical Inquiry. 12 (1): 21–37. S2CID 162202031.
- — (April 1986). "The importance of triviality". JSTOR 2185590.
- — (Spring 1986). "Review: Deconstruction and the philosophy of language Reviewed Work: The Deconstructive Turn: Essays in the Rhetoric of Philosophy by Christopher Norris". JSTOR 464650.
- — (Spring–Summer 1986). "Review: Are we ethnic? The theory and practice of American pluralism. Reviewed work: Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture by Werner Sollors". JSTOR 2904561.
- — (Winter–Spring 1987). "Racism and moral pollution". .
- — (Spring 1988). "Out of Africa: topologies of nativism". Yale Journal of Criticism. 2 (1): 153–178.
- — (Autumn 1990). "Alexander Crummell and the invention of Africa". JSTOR 25090195. Publisher's website.
- — (October 1990). "But would that still be me?" Notes on gender, "race," ethnicity, as sources of "identity" (PDF). The Journal of Philosophy. 87 (10): 493–499. JSTOR 2026866.
- — (Spring 1993). "African-American Philosophy?". .
- — (Spring 1998). "Race, pluralism, and Afrocentricity". JSTOR 2998938.
- — (2004). "Comprendre les réparations: une réflexion préliminaire" [Understanding reparation: a preliminary reflection]. JSTOR 4393367.
- — (April 2008). "Chapter 6: Education for global citizenship". Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. 107 (1): 83–99. .
- — (21 September 2010). "Convincing other cultures to change". Big Think. Archived from the original on 12 December 2013.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - Appiah, Kwame Anthony & Lionel Barber (Winter 2019). "The unity in disunity : looking at the world of globalization". Carnegie Conversation. Carnegie Reporter. 11 (1). Moderated by Scott Malcomson: 8–15.
- —"The Key to All Mythologies" (review of Emmanuelle Loyer, Lévi-Strauss: A Biography, translated from the French by Ninon Vinsonneau and Jonathan Magidoff, Polity, 2019, 744 pp.; and Maurice Godelier, Claude Lévi-Strauss: A Critical Study of His Thought, translated from the French by Nora Scott, Verso, 2019, 540 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 2 (13 February 2020), pp. 18–20. Appiah concludes his review (p. 20): "Lévi-Strauss... was... an inspired interpreter, a brilliant reader.... When the landmarks of science succeed in advancing their subject, they need no longer be consulted: physicists don't study Newton; chemists don't pore over Lavoisier.... If some part of Lévi-Strauss's scholarly oeuvre survives, it will be because his scientific aspirations have not."
See also
- Black British nobility, Appiah's class in Britain
- African philosophy
- Africana philosophy
References
- ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (9 November 2010), "Religious Faith and John Rawls", The New York Review of Books.
- ^ "LAPA Faculty Associate: Kwame Anthony Appiah". lapa.princeton.edu. Program in Law and Public Affairs, Princeton University. Archived from the original on 3 June 2013.
- ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (26 November 2013). "Noted Philosopher Moves to N.Y.U. — and Beyond". The New York Times.
- ^ "NYU Law welcomes renowned philosopher Kwame Appiah to the faculty". law.nyu.edu. School of Law, NYU. 26 November 2013.
- ^ a b Weinberg, Justin (28 January 2022). "Appiah Named Next President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters". Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ a b Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Biography". appiah.net. Kwame Anthony Appiah. Archived from the original on 3 February 2011. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
Professor Appiah has homes in New York city and near Pennington, in New Jersey, which he shares with his partner, Henry Finder, Editorial Director of the New Yorker magazine. (In Pennington, they have a small sheep farm.)
- ^ Pace, Eric (12 July 1990). "Joe Appiah Is Dead; Ghanaian Politician And Ex-Envoy, 71". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2012.
- OCLC 52897706.
- OCLC 1655711.
- ^ Postel, Danny (5 April 2002). "Is Race Real? How Does Identity Matter?". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (20 September 2010). "Ghanaians like sex too much to be homophobic". bigthink.com. Big Think.
- ^ "Biography, "Kwame Anthony Appiah", Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts". prelectur.stanford.edu. Stanford University. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- ^ "Kwame Anthony Appiah". Retrieved 28 December 2021.
- ^ "My Nephew | Kwame Anthony Appiah".
- PEN World Voices Festival. Archived from the originalon 19 May 2016. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). amacad.org. American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). Retrieved 19 April 2011.
- ^ "Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize". Brandeis University. 2008. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
- ^ "Gannon Award". gannonaward.org. The Gannon Award. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
- ^ Rothkopf, David (29 November 2010). "The FT top 100 global thinkers". Foreign Policy Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
- ^ Kellogg, Carolyn (10 February 2012). "Jacket copy: National medal of arts and national humanities medals announced". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Simmons, Ann M. (6 October 2017), Canadian Charles Margrave Taylor wins inaugural Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, Los Angeles Times: "Kwame Anthony Appiah, a New York University professor and philosopher who chaired this year's Berggruen Prize jury, praised the 'breadth and depth' of Taylor's intellectual contributions."
- ISBN 9780141027814.
- S2CID 162294784.
- .
- ISBN 0-393-06155-8
- ^ Aguila, Sissi (23 April 2010). "Kwame Appiah discusses 'World Citizenship' at FIU". FIU News. Florida International University. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
- ^ Hirsch, Afua. "The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah". Sun 23 Sep 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
- ^ Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism" in Perspectives on Africa, ed. Richard Roy Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner (London: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 728–731.
- ^ "Home page". upf.tv. Unity Productions Foundation. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
- ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Curriculum vitae". appiah.net. Kwame Anthony Appiah.
- ^ "Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness | Independent Lens". PBS. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
- ^ "The Ethicist". The New York Times Magazine.
- ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (30 September 2015). "What Should an Ethicist Tell His Readers". The New York Times.
- ^ "Kwame Anthony Appiah". BBC. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
- ^ ""There is no such thing as western civilization" by Kwame Anthony Appiah". The Guardian. 9 November 2016. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
- ^ "Explained: Can We Live Forever?". IMDb. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
- ^ "In My Father's House". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. The Cleveland Foundation.
- ^ "James Russell Lowell Prize Winners".
- ^ "Herskovits Award Winners". 2 May 2013. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
- ^ "Kwame Anthony Appiah", Royal Society of Literature.
- ^ Onwuemezi, Natasha (7 June 2017), "Rankin, McDermid and Levy named new RSL fellows", The Bookseller.
- ^ Ford, Celeste (29 June 2017), "July Fourth Tribute Honors 38 Distinguished Immigrants", Carnegie Corporation of New York.
- ^ "Kwame Anthony Appiah, NYU Philosopher, Named 'Great Immigrant'", New York University, 29 June 2017.
- ^ Edeme, Victoria (23 June 2022). "Soyinka, nine others receive Cambridge varsity honorary degrees". Punch Newspapers. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
Further reading
- Levy, Neil, ed. (November 2010). "Special issue: symposium on Anthony Appiah, experiments in ethics". Neuroethics. 3 (3).
- ISBN 9780299236847.
- Lee, Christopher J. (2021). Kwame Anthony Appiah. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780367229092.