Abstract
Lewis Gordon is Head of the Department of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs in the United States, and is one of the leading scholars of Black Existentialism. In this interview, we caught up with Professor Gordon about his book Fear of Black Consciousness, which explores how racial identity and human meaning are constructed through history, art, and popular culture. Drawing on an extraordinary breadth of references, Gordon ultimately argues against ‘seriousness’ or ‘closedness’ towards the worlds we make, and advocates for a radical love and openness towards the multitudinous possibilities of reality:

>“For us to deal with the richness of existence, for us to acknowledge the many ways of living in the world we manifest simultaneously, the approach has to be multidimensional… People are seduced by reductive thinking, simplified thinking… but to be genuinely curious, you begin to realize reality is just bigger than you are. To have a real commitment to reality and truth, you have to reach beyond yourself, which means you could get your butt kicked. So you need to have some courage: the idea of philosophers who have no courage is an abomination… I’m arguing that we’re not trying to constrain future humanity to this mess we have made. Instead, we’re trying to open up the possibilities for future humanity to live lives worth living.”