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Frank M. Kirkland

Kirkland

Room: 1413A HW
Phone: (212) 772-5080
Ext: 1-5080
Office Hours: Tuesday/Friday 10:30 am - 12:00 pm, and by appointment

Associate Professor of Philosophy
Ph.D & MA: New School For Social Research; BA: Bucknell University

fkirklan@hunter.cuny.edu 

Elected to the Hunter philosophy faculty in 1985 and was chairperson of the department from the start of July 1998 to the end of June 2010. Elected to the doctoral faculty of the PhD Program in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center in spring 1989. Elected as chairperson of the APA standing Committe on the Status of Blacks in Philosophy in July 1999 to the end of June 2002. Served on the Program Committee of the APA's Eastern Division from 2013 to 2016. Taught briefly at the University of Oklahoma and had 2 two-year stretches of study at both the University of Munich and  University of Tubingen in Germany. Prof. Kirkland does work in Kant, 19th and 20th Century European Philosophy, and Africana Philosophy. His work has focused on Kant, Hegelian and Husserlian idealisms as well as on the modernism of the African-diasporic intellectual traditions. He has long been at work on a single-authored volume tentatively entitled Hegelian Idealism and the Black Atlantic.

BOOKS:

Frank M. Kirkland, The 2003 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture -- The Problem of the Color Line: Normative or Empirical; Evolving or Non-Evolving, Responses by Professors Rose Cherubin and Jeffrey Stewart, (First in a series of monographs based on the W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures at George Mason University, 2005), pp. 4-68. (See also Philosophia Africana, vol. 7, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 57-82.)

Bill E. Lawson and Frank M. Kirkland, eds., Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).

Frank M. Kirkland, ed., Phenomenology -- East and West: Essays in Honor of J.N. Mohanty (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1993).

REPRESENTATIVE PRESENTATIONS currently and soon to include:

"Hegel's Would-be Critique of (Pseudo) Race-Science" to be presented at a public lecture to the Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (SSAP) in New York City (TBA).

"W.E.B. Du Bois and Brown v. Board of Education" to be  presented as a public lecture sponsored by Brooklyn Public Philosophers at the Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch on 27 April 2015.

"With What Must Alexander Crummell's Account of Black Nationalism Begin (and End) and Why?" presented at a conference on "African-American Political Theory" at the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) in Las Vegas, NV, 2-4 April 2015.

"Ferguson's Political Imaginary" presented at a panel discussion (with a defense attorney, a journalist, and a John Jay professor of police ethics) sponsored by the Philosophy Program at Lehman College in the Bronx, 4 March 2015.

"Did/Should the Historical Import of the Saint Domingue Revolution (SDR) Carry Impact Philosophically?" to be presented in a panel discussion (with Professors Susan Buck-Morss [Political Science], John Oakes [History], and Jeremy Popkin [History]) sponsored by the PhD Program in History at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, 21 March 2014.

"On Du Bois' Notion of Double Consciousness" presented at a public lecture to the Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (SSAP) in New York City, 16 September 2012.

"How Hegelian Insights Inform Black Atlantic Thought via the Saint Domingue Revolution" presented at the 39th annual meeting of Society of the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP) to be held at the Lincoln Center Campus of Fordham University in New York City on 17 March 2012.

"Rousseau's Place in Du Bois' Assessment of Brown v. Board of Education" presented as a Powerpoint public lecture at a symposium on Du Bois (with Professor David Levering Lewis) sponsored by the Yonkers chapter of the NAACP held at the Yonkers Library on 23 February 2012.

"Douglass & Du Bois: A 'Kirklandish' Rejoinder to Robert Gooding-Williams' In the Shadow of Du Bois" presented as critical commentary on said book (with Professors Gooding-Williams and Paul Taylor) in main program at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA), Washington, D.C., 30 December 2011.

"Hegel's Idealism, Africa and Saint Domingue" presented at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 29 September through 2 October 2011. Also presented at the Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (SSAP) in New York City, 19 September 2011.

"Is an Existential Reading Sufficient in Frederick Douglass' Critique of Slavery?" presented at a symposium (with Professors Lewis Gordon and George Yancy) on Frederick Douglass at the American Philosophical Association's (APA) Central Division Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2011.

"Hegel's Idealism and the Saint Domingue Revolution" presented at a public lecture sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, February 2011.

"The Hegel-Black Atlantic Project" presented at the 7th Annual California Roundtable on Philosophy and Race hosted by Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, October 2010.

"Hegel and Husserl on Rationality and Actuality: Are Shareable Meanings Shareable Reasons?" presented at a symposium (with Professor David Carr) in honor of J.N. Mohanty sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 2010

"Africa and Hegelian Like-Mindedness: The Vanishing 'We' and 'We,' the Underdeveloped" presented at a public lecture to the Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (SSAP) in New York, New York, March 2009.

REVIEWS:

African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude by Souleymane Bachir Diagne, trans. Chike Jeffers, (Seagull Books) in International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 46, no. 3 (January 2014), pp. 462-66.

The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality after the History of Philosophy by Naomi Zack (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.) in The Journal of American Ethnic History vol. 33, no. 1 (Fall 2013), pp. 77-79.

Democracy' Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W.E.B. Du Bois by Lawrie Balfour (Oxford University Press) in Notre Dame Philosophical Review, November 2011.http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/27285-democracy-s-reconstruction-thinking-politically-with-w-e-b-du-bois/ 

A Short History of African Philosophy, 2nd ed., by Barry Hallen (Indiana University Press) in International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 43, no. 2 (2010), pp. 388-91.

Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Post-Racial Future by Emmanuel Eze (Routledge) in Notre Dame Philosophical Review, April 2002. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23308-achieving-our-humanity-the-idea-of-the-postracial-future/.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS currently include:

"Ferguson's Political Imaginary and The Political Normativity of 'Black Lives Matter': Interanimations of the Idea of and The (Local) Administrations of Justice" in The Critique http://www.thecritique.com/articles/fergusons-political-imaginary-the-political-normativity-of-black-lives-matter/

"Kant on 'Race' and 'Transition' (Ubergang) & Hegel on 'Race' and 'Development' (Entwicklung)." A book chapter forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race, eds., Linda Alcoff, Paul Taylor, and Luvell Anderson, to be published by Routledge.

"Alexander Crummell's Three Visions of Black Nationalism" A book chapter forthcoming in A Companion to African-American Political Theory, eds., Melvin Rogers and Jack Turner, to be published by the University of Chicago Press.

"The Questionable Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education: Du Bois' Iconoclastic Critique" in Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture, vol. 14, no. 2-3 (Summer 2015) online

"Is An Existential Reading of the Fight with Covey Sufficient to Explain Frederick Douglass' Critique of Slavery" in Critical Philosophy of Race, vol. 3 issue 1, (2015) pp. 124-51.

"On Du Bois' Notion of Double Consciousness" in Philosophy Compass, vol. 8, no. 2 (2013) online http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/phc3.12001/pdf

"Hegel and the Saint Domingue Revolution -- 'Perfect Together?': A Review of Susan Buck-Morss' Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History" in Logos: The Journal of Modern Society and Culture (online), vol. 11, no. 2-3 (spring-summer 2012). http://www.logosjournal.com/2012/spring-summer_kirkland/

"How Would Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit Be Relevant Today?" in Logos: The Journal of Modern Society and Culture (online), vol. 7, no. 1 (Winter 2008). http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_7.1/kirkland.htm

“The Problem of the Color Line: Normative or Empirical; Evolving or Non-Evolving” in Philosophia Africana, vol. 7, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 57-82.http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=13143171&site=ehost-live

“Modernisms in Black” in A Companion to African-American Philosophy, Tommy L. Lott and John P. Pittman, eds., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), pp. 67-86.

“Enslavement, Moral Suasion, and Struggles for Recognition: Frederick Douglass’ Answer to the Question—‘What is Enlightenment?’” in Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader, Bill E. Lawson and Frank M. Kirkland, eds., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), pp. 243-310.

"Comments on Richard McDonough's 'Kant's Argument Against the Possibility of Cognitive Science'" in Proceedings of the 8th International Kant Congress, vol. I, Part 3, Sec. 5A (Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1995), pp. 1361-65.

“Hegel’s Critique of Psychologism” in Phenomenology: East and West, Frank M. Kirkland, ed., (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1993), pp. 218-41. http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-94-011-1612-1_15.pdf 

"Social Policy, Ethical Life, and the Urban Underclass" in The Underclass Question, Bill E. Lawson, ed., (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), pp. 152-87.

"Kant's Objectivity Argument in the 1787 Transcendental Deduction" in Idealistic Studies 17 (3) pp. 245-57 1987.

“Apperception and Combination: Some Kantian Problems” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 49, no. 3, March 1989, pp. 447-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2107798