Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality

by Mills, Charles W.

• ISBN13: 9789766402273
• ISBN10: 9766402272
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-15
• Publisher: Univ of West Indies Pr

Summary

Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality is a collection of articles written over many years that explores the common themes of race and class in the Caribbean and the attempt to overcome social domination. Beginning with an autobiographical account of how his own philosophical outlook was shaped by the radicalization of the region following the 1968 Rodney riots, Jamaican philosopher Charles Mills looks both at those turbulent times and at their aftermath. The essays examine abstract political theory (Marxism, critical race theory, liberal social contract theory) while also focusing on specific Caribbean ideas, issues and events, such as M.G. Smith's plural society thesis, portrayals of the Jamaican left in popular thrillers, the collapse of the Grenada Revolution, "smadditizin'" as the affirmation of personhood in a racist society and the evolution of Stuart Hall's views on race. As such, they all share a concern with the struggle for a more just social order and are "radically" oriented. The title has a double meaning insofar as it signifies both the application of radical theory to the Caribbean reality, and the ways in which that reality has too often collided with the theory, revealing its inadequacies. As Mills explains, "The overall aim is to elucidate some classic subjects and themes in radical theory, both generally and with local Caribbean application, and to map in the process a trajectory of intellectual development not peculiar to my own history but traced by many others of my generation also." Book jacket.

Author Biography

Charles W. Mills is John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xix
List of Abbreviations	p. xxiii
Introduction: Red Shift: Politically Embodied/Embodied Politics	p. 1
"Ideology" in Marx and Engels	p. 28
Determination and Consciousness in Marx	p. 49
Race and Class: Conflicting or Reconcilable Paradigms?	p. 72
Red Menance to the Green Island: The "Communist Threat" to Jamaica in Genre Fiction, 1955-1969	p. 101
Getting out of the Cave: Tensions between Democracy and Elitism in Marx's Theory of Cognitive Liberation	p. 128
Smadditizin'	p. 164
Stuart Hall's Changing Representations of "Race"	p. 185
Symposium on The Racial Contract	p. 213
Contracting White Normativity
Race and Revising Liberalism
Opening up the Intellectual Closet of Modern Western Political Philosophy
Reply to My Critics
References	p. 249
Index	p. 271
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