Abstracts are needed for a forthcoming edited collection entitled Let There Be Light: Philosophical Essays on August Wilson. This collection of essays will supplement May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, edited by Alan Nadel, and published by University of Iowa Press in 1994.
Acceptable abstracts will emphasize a philosophical discussion of Wilson’s work in relation to aesthetics, epistemology, political philosophy, moral philosophy, the history of philosophy, African-American philosophy, and performance philosophy. Abstracts may propose a philosophical discussion of a character or multiple characters in one of his plays or of the entirety of his dramatic work as a whole.
Abstracts may also concern a relationship between one or more characters in multiple plays and their connection to one of the previously enumerated philosophical sub-fields, and/or their connection to a figure in the history of philosophy. For example, the editor is writing a chapter on the relationship between the character Hambone in Two Trains Running, and the character Stool Pigeon in King Hedley II. These two characters, in turn, are linked to Nietzsche’s account of the role of the dithyrambic hymns and the chorus in Greek tragedy, and his critique of Socratic optimism in The Birth of Tragedy. These are then related to the permanence thesis of Derrick Bell’s racial realism, and to DuBois’ claim that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the “color-line.”
Please send abstracts of between 500-750 words to logostosarx@gmail.com. Abstracts are due by August 1, 2016.