On April 7th and 8th, 2005, the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Religion, the Office of the Provost, and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts will co-sponsor a conference, “Recent Africana Philosophy in Three Movements.” The conference’s three ‘movements’are panel discussions, each of which explores the work of an important thinker in a distinctive area of Africana philosophy: analytical Africana philosophy, with Howard McGary of Rutgers University (who is a Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy this term); African Philosophy and Gender, featuring Nkiru Nzegwu of Binghamton University and past President of the International Association of African Philosophy; and Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, featuring Paget Henry of Brown University, whose book, Caliban’s Reason, recently received the Frantz Fanon Prize for outstanding book in Caribbean thought.

In addition, ISRST will honor poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips of Stony Brook University; Leonard Harris of Purdue University will discuss “The Aesthetic Combat of Alain Locke, A Philadelphia Negro”as ISRST’s inaugural Alain Locke Lecturer; and Naomi Zack of the University of Oregon will deliver the Department of Philosophy’s Monroe Beardsley Lecture, on the theme, “Beauty, Obscenity, and Power.” Professor Zack’s talk is co-sponsored by the American Society for Aesthetics, which will be meeting in Philadelphia on April 8th and 9th.