In this powerful collection by one of today's leading African American intellectuals, Keeping Faith situates the current position of African Americans, tracing the geneology of the "Afro-American Rebellion" from Martin Luther King to the rise of black revolutionary leftists. In Cornel West's hands issues of race and freedom are inextricably tied to questions of philosophy and, above all, to a belief in the power of the human spirit.
"Indeed, readers who find Race Matters provocative but thin, a tasty but unfilling appetizer, will find KeepingFaith to be a much more satisfying main course." -- Harvard Review
"West brings an acute intelligence, wide reading, and training in philosophy and theology to bear on the irrationalities in all political camps...The left, the black movement and all others would profit by a careful reading of Keeping Faith." -- Boston Globe
"Well-informed and provocative, aware both of the power and the dangers of cultural criticism. An important book." -- Library Journal
"This book provides uncommon insight into what West calls `prophetic criticism'--critical analysis that inspires as well as condemns." -- Los Angeles Times
Cornel West is Professor of Afro-American Studies and Religion at Harvard University. He lectures widely and appears frequently on television, including Conversationswith Bill Moyers.
Preface: The Difficulty of Keeping Faith, 1 The Cultural Politics of Difference, 2 Black Critics and the Pitfalls of Canon Formation, 3 A Note on Race and Architecture, 4 Horace Pippin's Challenge to Art Criticism, 5 The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual, Philosophy and Political Engagement, 6 Theory, Pragmatisms and Politics, 7 Pragmatism and the Sense of the Tragic, 8 The Historicist Turn in Philosophy of Religion, 9 The Limits of Neo-pragmatism, 10 On Georg Lukacs, 11 Fredric Jameson's American Marxism, Law and Culture, 12 Reassessing the Critical Legal Studies Movement, 13 Critical Legal Studies and a Liberal Critic, 14 Charles Taylor and the Critical Legal Studies Movement, 15 The Role of Law in Progressive Politics, Explaining Race, 17 The Paradox of the African American Rebellion.