The present dissertation is a case study in applied phenomenology, specifically the postcolonial phenomenology of racism theorized by Lewis Gordon and applied to scholarly studies conducted on African American Jews and their kinfolk. My thesis is the following: Presumptively ontological human natures cannot function axiomatically for humanistic research on African American Jews. A humanistic science of Africana Jews must foreground the lived social worlds that permit such Jews to appear as ordinary expressions of humanity. The basic premise here is that subaltern (or denied) humanity exists in a neocolonial social world by virtue of an ordinariness that supervenes on humanity. For example, the more historians consider Africana Jews as ordinary, the more Africana Jews' humanity will appear. And the more human Africana Jews appear, the more inhuman their extraordinary appearance appears. This symbiosis constitutes a basic existential condition. When research on Africana Jews ignores this condition, it succumbs to ontological Jewishnness and other concepts rooted in what postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon calls the "colonial natural attitude. / Religion
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/1501 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Isaac, Walter |
| Contributors | Alpert, Rebecca T. (Rebecca Trachtenberg), 1950-, Gordon, Lewis R. (Lewis Ricardo), 1962-, Levitt, Laura, 1960-, Jackson, John L., Jr., 1971- |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 426 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/1483, Theses and Dissertations |
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