THE BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.3, ISSUE#11,SEPT-NOV/2020
Fumi Okiji, Jazz as Critique: Adorno and Black Expression Revisited, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2018).
In Jazz as Critique: Adorno and Black Expression Revisited, Fumi Okiji invites us to revisit Theodor Adorno’s notoriously dismissive approach to Jazz and to inquire into the history of the African American experience to which he has paid the scantest of attention. The author’s empathetic way of taking the reader into “how it feels to be Black”[i] cannot but be read in a different light in that her reflections invite us to situate her study in what has been unfolding around the world in recent times, namely the COVID-19 pandemic with its impact on social, cultural, political and economic life, and also the renewed eruption of protests, sparked by the death of George Floyd, uniting under the proclamation that Black lives matter.[ii] How can we read and understand Okiji’s work at a point in time when all human existence and expression is captured by the global spread of COVID-19? How does this moment shape and change how we perceive “home”, “freedom” the individual and the collective – all terms which Okiji employs – now and in the future? Can it tell us something about questions of inequalities and marginalization, which affect in turn what can be understood as “freedom”?
In her book, Okiji elaborately explores how Black existence in the United States cannot but shape the critical potentiality of cultural expression. She depicts and explains the radical disjuncture between ‘African’ and ‘American’ and how the very institution and ground of modern subjectivity as such was dependent on this Black difference. Scrutinizing the “possibility and particularities of Black social life”, she takes the reader on a journey to ‘feeling’ what the double consciousness of being both human and inhuman, in the world but never at home, might mean for the music. This journey into Black life in the United States is crucial, at a moment when an unequal society reveals its trenches more brazenly than before. In times of COVID-19, the disparities between racial groups in the United States and the “great discrepancies”, not only in the diagnosis but also the treatment of African Americans and other minorities, serve to exacerbate already existing threats toward undermining Black community.[iii] For the outside spectator from across the Atlantic, the coronavirus pandemic becomes both: apocalypse and epiphany. Okiji is not only reminding us of these disparities in the US-American societies and realities of Black existence, she beautifully discusses on an ontological level what now “stand[s] to be magnified in light of the coronavirus crisis”[iv]. When writing On Jazz (Über Jazz) in 1936, although Adorno could clearly have benefitted from such a magnifying glass, would it really have prevented him from “[T]he careless glance cast over the psychological trauma of Black America”?
Relating Jazz to “the very particular relation Black life has to America, democracy, and liberty”, Okiji also opens up a bigger picture and guides us into the question on how expression of the individual, how cultural forms and their place in society, can exist and function in times of disparities, on the globe. She takes us beyond the US-American setting, beyond the example of Jazz music and, in close conversation with Adorno’s work, guides us directly into the writings of the German philosopher. Not to dismiss them, not to glorify them, but to start from a different angle, relating both Jazz and Adorno’s writings to the socio-historical and individual backgrounds of those writing and creating, and bringing the critical potential of both in constructive dialogue. Taking up this mode of thinking – starting a conversation with other authors to develop a refined position – , Okiji’s work invites being read in relation to other approaches towards understanding questions of contemporary Black subjectivity.[v]
Recently, other authors have tried to relate “Blackness” to a state of being in the world as such. From their different background and perspective, they tackle the issue of what it means to be “Black” in the 20th and 21st century, with similar feelings and impetus, but yet in very different ways. One of them is Achille Mbembe in his Critique de la raison nègre. His reflections on the “Becoming Black of the World”[vi] in an era of neo-liberalism, can serve as an entry point to join together perspectives that equally deserve (at least) one puzzle piece more. Bringing the two books in conversation allows us to situate Okiji’s study in a broader context. At the same time, it helps underscore any blind spots that both studies may equally share.
Jazz as Critique
Okiji begins by introducing the reader to the idea that “Black life cannot help but be lived as critical reflection”, an argument which she expounds in the following chapters. Black music does not represent Black life or an alternative human future, she explains, but it shows us “how we might go about dispositioning ourselves, so that we might know how it feels to be a conflicted subject – both human and inhuman”. With this powerful start to a well-grounded and well-written study, Okiji sets the floor to analyse how Jazz may be capable of reflecting critically on the contradictions from which it arises.
Okiji’s basis for analysis is first and foremost Adorno’s essay On Jazz. She combines a close (re-)reading of this controversial and much discussed essay with relating it to many of his other writings (e. g. Aesthetic Theory, Essay on Music, Philosophy of Modern Music, Minima Moralia), his personal and intellectual background, then academic analyses and responses to the vexed Jazz-essay (which have been numerous), and step by step positions it vis-à-vis pieces of Jazz music – both with regard to composition as well as lyrics – , what Jazz musicians like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane stated about their work themselves, and reflections on Blackness, humanity and modernity by other authors, both historical as well as contemporary intellectuals, e.g. W. E. B. DuBois, Fred Moten and Jared Sexton. Okiji grounds the analysis in Jazz as Critique on these and other thinkers who spelled out how it is that Black subjectivity was encoded from the start with irresolvable contradictions. From this body of work she also takes inspiration to look closer at how the Black subject “is caught between the denial of American/human home and the active dissolution of African origin”. Key aspects of these debates, i.e. contradictions, denial of home, structural incapability of world-making, double character of being both complicit and critical weapon, are picked up in her discussion and are creatively combined with for example the exposition of German philosopher Walter Benjamin of “storytelling”[vii] and poetic work by Nathaniel Mackey on “dwelling”. Okiji’s main interest is to approach Jazz music from an alternative vantage point and to show how, ultimately, the music is facilitated by the disconnect between Black life and its denigration. This disconnect grounds its critical potential, she argues.
After introducing common narratives on Jazz, and relating them to Adorno’s misgivings concerning the music, Okiji suggests that Jazz cannot be adequately understood through these readings. Neither Adorno’s largely unreflective focus on the bourgeoisie, nor the “noble savage” racism from early Jazz studies, interpreting Jazz as “a manifestation of freedom from intellectualized approaches to creative expression” and “spontaneous urge” are helpful, in that they abstract the music from its Black sociohistorical context. Yet, this contextualisation is crucial, because, as Okiji expounds, Black America poses a direct challenge to the understanding of the terms America, freedom, and democracy.
The degradation of African captives to commodities and the replacement of distinction and singularity, which marks the human, but not the slave, created a conceptual and symbolic apparatus of the “mass-in-the-individual” (Hortense J Spillers), Okiji explains. Every Black person has to constantly negotiate this “badge of colour” (DuBois), whether he/she actively embraces it or not. Black humanity, for this reason, “is an aberration, a contradiction in terms”, and Black life cannot but be lived as critical reflection. This circumstance is not a choice or a privilege of an enlightened or committed few, but “a condition to being Black”. That being said and set, in return, cannot help but shape the subsequent argumentation. Accordingly, Okiji argues that African American expression “cannot help but be a critical reflection on the integrity of the world”, and the reader, struck by her beautiful and powerful phrasing, is willing to follow on this path.
At the same time, our usual understanding of an autonomous, private individual must be considered an abstraction in relation to Black America, she holds. Commentators throughout its history have seen Jazz as music of the individual, and this position continued to confound Adorno in his engagement with the music. However, Okiji claims that the individual cannot [italic in original] figure in the Black community by drawing upon DuBoisian ‘double consciousness’ and the critical potential of Black expression. It is essential to consider Black expression’s “attuned-outsiderness” within the specific historical and material conditions from which it emerged, countering Adorno’s understanding of Jazz as being antithetic to radicalism, as the archetypal music of the culture industry. Indeed, through her extended conceptual engagement with Duboisian ‘double consciousness’, Okiji illuminates the “critical acumen facilitated by the veil” and the “critical potential of being a problem”. As such, the author makes very clear that ‘double consciousness’ must not be confused with multi-culturalism or hybridity. Rather, she focuses on the historical-ontological implications of DuBois’ formulation, arguing that such a reading forces a revised response to Adorno’s critique of Jazz.
Okiji’s detailed analysis of the music is a pleasure to read not only for musicologists and experts in Jazz studies, as she keeps bringing her musical analysis back to the “subject constituted by the holding of contradictory positions” and ultimately the “irreconciliation of modern life”. Okiji then tackles the possibility and particularities of Black social life, pointing to the social (or political) death the modern Black is born into. “Homelessness” is how she describes this life “underground, in outer space” (Jared Sexton), and the lack of relationality between Black life and the world. Okiji’s thoughts on “Not being at home” are a crucial starting point for the reflections that follow.
Unfortunately, there are moments when Okiji succumbs to essentialist tropes that unfortunately contribute towards slightly diminishing the tremendous sharpness of her critique. During those moments it seems that, in her wish to counter Adorno, she falls into the old trap of bringing rather generalizing statements of “Black” vs. “European” approaches. Though Okiji tries to relativize her statements, the reader is lead to readily conclude that so-called West African polytheism imbues music with an “integrative approach” in sharp contrast to the inherent intentions of European music that ultimately renders the “handprint” of the musician invisible. A modern European composer, and, indeed, performer, will imbue the piece with his or her character, she acknowledges “even if the intention is to the contrary”. For the Jazz musician, however “the retention of this distinction is the focus of the creative process rather than a (tolerated or embraced) by-product”. In Black literature and Jazz “previous versions and voices sound in the present while aligning alternative versions of the ‘past’ in an accumulated repertoire”[viii], Okiji argues, and she highlights “the productive tension between the nurturing of personal distinction and the commitment to communal work”. A musicologist would know better here, but the reader at least wonders if this productive tension could not be a characteristic of other, if not all orchestral or group music. This lack of in-depth discussion of other “modern European” musical styles, with the same scrutiny and thoughtful consideration, which Okiji devotes to Jazz, is a void which is at least a little bit disappointing after such a compelling argumentation in the beginning. Similarly, her thoughts on Walter Benjamin’s “storytelling” and potential links to Jazz musicians in this section are interesting (namely that both are “listeners”), but the question remains if these connections could only be drawn to Jazz music and Black expression, and not a multitude of other forms of cultural expression, too.
Trying to point to a fundamental flaw in Adorno’s body of work, namely his structural, exclusionary approach to music, Okiji brings good criticism of his approach which “silence[s] the music in order that it fit a wholly inappropriate formalist agenda”, and she argues convincingly where and why Adorno’s standards fall short. Structural listening and the individual critical that drives it are unable to orientate Adorno toward Blackness and Jazz, Okiji explains. At the same time, Adorno’s structural approach to music may have not been the (only) obstacle. Arguably, Adorno was never known as an engaged intellectual in the way of other fellows at Frankfurt School, e.g. Herbert Marcuse. Not only did Adorno consider Jazz music “insufficiently autonomous to mount effective critique [of the failed Enlightenment project]”, he was also anxious over the fact that individuals are powerless and socially impoverished as such – and he was heavily criticised for his ambivalent, unsupportive reaction to the 1968 protests.[ix] It could have been productive, hence, to relate Adorno’s disdain for Jazz to another fundamental flaw in his approach: his disdain for protest. But why then is Okiji engaging so much with Adorno to point to the critical potential of Jazz? Is it not “vergebliche Liebesmühe”[x] from the outset? It must be some love, or appreciation, of Adorno’s perspective indeed, and his pessimistic scorn for any claim of autonomous individuality might be Okiji’s theoretical source of attraction. His take on the alienated, or fractured, subject (e.g. Minima Moralia – Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben[xi]) indeed relates in very specific ways to the homelessness of the Black subject that Okiji describes.
Coronavirus and Critique
When writing Jazz as Critique, Okiji couldn’t have anticipated the crisis that keeps shaking the world this year. Neither did she foresee “#stayathome”-slogans nor could she predict renewed protests against police violence and racism in the United States of America. One must hence be cautious when relating her findings to recent societal developments. Reading her book through this lens only would also wrong her in-depth research of Jazz music. Still, her study has been conducted on the backdrop of racial, economic and social inequalities, and it can sharpen our eyes for conditions that persist. Central themes in Okiji’s book are the relation of home and Blackness and the relation of humanity and Blackness. Whilst the former, namely home, has been a crucial issue in the current coronavirus crisis, the latter, the value of human life, is now in the focus again in the many forms of Black lives matter activities.
“Home” is a possession that the Black modern cannot attain, Okiji explains convincingly in her discussion. The relation between home and Blackness is no straightforward matter, she shows, proposing the notion of “dwelling” to describe a certain unsettledness in Black expression and thought. “Restless staying” is how she calls this in reference to Nathanial Mackey. These reflections on “home” obviously take place on a different level and, when written, were not meant to refer to a specific empirical, and certainly not the current situation. Therefore the two should not too easily be compared or conflated. Yet, she picks up on notions of “home” and “freedom”, the “individual” and its relation to the “group”, which are undoubtedly of high importance for human beings, throughout times and across geographies. Reading Okiji’s book whilst news of the COVID-19 pandemic and the disastrous situation of the Afro-American and other minority communities in the United States were, and are still, popping up daily, her explanations touch the reader in a different way. At this moment in time, the insights that Okiji provides intellectually, and tries to mediate emotionally, allow the reader to relate her descriptions to what has been experienced as lived reality across the Atlantic[xii], and elsewhere.
Activists in many contexts worldwide have underlined that both ‘staying at home’ as well as ‘social distancing’ are meaningful for a privileged group of people only, and journalists pointed to the intersection of vulnerability with race and poverty.[xiii] Clearly, in the United States of America, the Afro-American population is disproportionally affected by the pandemic, especially in terms of deaths.[xiv] This sad reality relates to modern Black existence both on a very practical, existential level, as well as on an ontological level. Inspired by Okiji’s discussion of the relation between home and Blackness, it is thus asked here, what “#stayathome” might possibly mean for a subject who, in Okiji’s interpretation, by default cannot be at home. What Okiji calls the “denial of any sense of home” makes those political slogans on the occasion of the coronavirus pandemic sound absurd, at best. More analyses will be needed in the upcoming years to fully grasp what this pandemic does to human social life and expression on a global scale, and scientists and critical analysts from all disciplines are currently contributing to this quest. In time, it will also become clearer, how the persisting structural injustice, forms of inequality, and disparities between racial groups are affected.
The broader question of Blackness and humanity is not a new one (but a fundamental one with the onset of modernity as imposed by western imperialist power),[xv] and others have tackled the relation and constitution of “anti-Blackness” (e. g. Lewis Gordon), the “Blackened world” (e. g. Jared Sexton, Fred Moten)[xvi], and the “Blackening of the world” (Achille Mbembe). Whilst Okiji is clearly inspired by the former, bringing her findings in conversation with the latter, Mbembe’s proposals in Critique of Black Reason, appears to be rewarding. This second connection invites for a truly broader conversation on issues of Blackness and humanity in the 21st century. Why is that necessary though? Universalizing languages and common reference suggest that discussions about Blackness and humanity are part of a wider Black conversation. The traditions of thought in African, French Caribbean and European contexts relate to similar notions of “communal”, “orality” and “mimesis” that Okiji brings forth. At second sight though, looking at empirical groundings and academic communities, they do it with different social realities in mind when revisiting the question of what it means to be Black in the 21st century. Eventually, they might actually not be so transregionally connected, rather, quite often situated in a very specific setting, hiding tensions in the field, and not using the full potential of intriguing thought that has been produced in the last two decades. Drawing the connection between Okiji’s study to Mbembe’s work and other perspectives which discuss “Blackness” in the sense of “Négritude” can enrich her take on Black expression, I trust.
Critique of Black Reason
Different than the book by Okiji, which explicates the critical potential of Jazz music, the focus of Mbembe’s publication Critique of Black Reason (2017) is placed on past and present forms of global capitalism. His writing stems from a different disciplinary background, combining history and philosophical contemplations. The author aims to contribute to the history of global capitalism on the one hand, but also discusses the limits and scopes of Western metaphysics and their racial foundation.[xvii] In his book, Mbembe departs from the birth of the racial subject and how it is linked to the emergence of global capitalism. He focuses on the history of racial domination and manifestations of “racial capitalism”[xviii], and illustrates how Black humanity has been denied by colonizing nations for centuries, and how Enlightenment philosophers, e.g. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, have contributed to denying that humanity.[xix] In his approach of relating Immanuel Kant to Blackness, Mbembe rather refers to thinkers such as Anthony Appiah, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall and Aimé Cesaire, to name the most significant only, whereas Okiji in her attempt to bring Adorno in a better conversation with Blackness is mainly grounding her argument on works by Walther Benjamin, Fred Moten, Jared Sexton, Nahum Chandler, and W. E. B. DuBois. The latter, Mbembe acknowledges as influential thinker too, but does not integrate his perspective in such critical detail. Stating now that one of the authors is being influenced rather by postcolonial studies, whereas the other is coming from the background of Black and African American Studies, falls short of acknowledging the complexities of their intellectual backdrop and the actual groundings and layouts of their works. But, it is worthwile pointing to these circles of academics and traditions of thought here, because, as I would argue, different geographies and understandings of Blackness are shining through Mbembe’s and Okiji’s writings.
Both Mbembe and Okiji have a similar impetus in considering “Blackness” as a state of being, and tackle similar themes. Both authors for example consider the “social death” of the slave and Mbembe is using similar notions, when speaking about the universalization of the Black condition in his book. But, whereas Mbembe argues that experiences of Black slaves today become the norm for a large part of subaltern humanity,[xx] and that Blackness is global, having meaning beyond colour of skin, for the entire modern world and modern subjectivity (“Blackening of the world”), Okiji is rather ‘conservative’ in holding onto to reflections on the Blackness of one’s skin and this “badge of colour” (DuBois), and the specific condition of Black life in America. She reflects on the proposition by Nahum Dimitri Chandler to “generalize and therefore radicalize W. E. B. DuBois’s formulation of the African American sense of identity … to American identities as such and to modern subjectivities in general”, and she also brings Jared Sexton’s suggestion that Black social life is “underground, in outer space”, but yet she is not taking Adorno so far in asserting that individuality and freedom are unobtainable for the modern subject as such (or questioning if any modern can attain “home”, according to Adorno). For her argumentation and the point she wants to make, this is perfectly fine. Her focus is put on the critical potential of Jazz music and the detailed discussion she provides stands for itself. Okiji is touching upon issues of the “degradation of humanity” and the ”burgeoning monopolistic capitalism” mainly when she brings Walter Benjamin’s description of the “Great War cohort”, and she would rather focus on individuality and freedom, which are both ontological rather than experiential questions for the modern Black subject, as she argues. Again, it would fall short to generalize that whilst Mbembe is emphasizing the universality of the Black condition[xxi], Okiji is rather pointing to the particularity of it. But clearly the two authors start from different angles to their discussions of “race” (a word that Mbembe is using, Okiji rather not) and/or “Blackness”, and they have different geographies of Blackness in mind. This is not to say that one of them is better or more appropriate, but this makes the two authors and books so mutually complementary for each other. For both, the era of transatlantic slave trade – which coincidently corresponds with the Enlightenment era in Western Europe – appears to be the crucial period in time, it laid the ground for everything the two authors discuss in their different yet insightful philosophical ways.
Taking together Okiji’s key argument that Black life (in America) cannot help but be lived as critical reflection because of the impossibility of the autonomous individual (that we would usually assume) with Mbembe’s suggestion that the Black experience is becoming the norm for a large part of subaltern humanity, finally brings them back to Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and his concern over individuals’ loss of autonomy in the era of monopolistic capitalism. His understanding of identity as being imposed upon subjects, suppressing or ignoring their differences and diversity[xxii] speaks to their works, and the key theme of critical theory, the embattled individual, becomes highly relevant again at this moment in time in the 21st century. Critique (“Kritik”) is the crucial notion here, which unites the three.
Afterthought
This close reading of Okiji’s compelling study Jazz as Critique. Adorno and Black Expression Revisited has shown us that much can be learned when looking into the intricate relation of Blackness and humanity in detail, and from different angles.
Okiji offers us an analysis that can be used as a starting point to situate her philosophical considerations in what is unfolding currently around the world, and to delve into broader questions and comparisons. Comparing and connecting Okiji’s and Mbembe’s take on Blackness, aesthetics, and humanity to other authors could help us to understand the differentiations and cleavages in a highly relevant field of inquiry, which too often appear to be covered by a generalized (and generalizing) language. Acknowledging the very specific geographies and philosophies they are actually situated in, will not diminish but rather strengthen their claims. Bringing them into conversation with each other, and re-linking them to thinkers from the early to mid-20th century – or even before - who similarly struggled and grappled with a crisis unravelling around them and the situation humanity found itself in, will certainly not harm, as Okiji’s attempt has proven.
It remains an open question, if the two authors would agree with how they have been spatially and intellectually located here – and what they think of each other’s exposition of Blackness. Would Okiji agree with Mbembe’s description of Black people as being transformed into the form and spirit of merchandise[xxiii], as “living script[s] of capital”? Or would she actually argue – against Adorno’s criticism of the music – that Black Jazz musicians, because of their default position in American society and their life lived as (embodied) critical reflection, are not being, cannot be, transformed into merchandise? Would she perhaps counter that ‘making everybody Black because of capitalism’ is playing into Adorno’s hand, who, in his Eurocentric blindness, was fixated on and obsessed with capitalism and the cultural industry and for that reason ignored the socio-historical coming into being of the Black subject – therewith neglecting and concealing the ontological condition of being Black? Both would probably agree in principle that the situation they are describing is caused by the long legacies of imperialism and global capitalism; and that it keeps persisting, as still “racism remains a ‘useful’, necessary apparatus for reproducing the continuous transfer of wealth to the privileged by justifying capitalism’s hegemony”[xxiv].
Both studies undoubtedly deserve attention, and, whereas Mbembe’s book has been well perceived particularly in the French, German, South African and US-American academic communities, especially the work of Okiji, a young female academic, would deserve more attention in academia and beyond. Her elaborate way of pointing to the philosophical, ontological way in which a Black person is being in the world, whilst not being part of it, due to the legacies of slave trade, colonialism and the world view that accompanied it, and then linking it back to one concrete example, Black expression and cultural production (Jazz), can add to those perspectives, that have been in the spot light. The well-considered thought that her rather short study is comprising can complement sweeping overviews that may lack the love for detail. It also complements Adorno’s work, who clearly lacked the love for Jazz.
But, in contrast to pessimistic Adorno, both Okiji and Mbembe promote a positive turn to the historically grown situation they attest. Perhaps Okiji would not share Mbembe’s hopes for the “healing forces” and a “contemporary struggle for a world beyond race”, especially at this moment in time. We would need to ask. But, she too, closes her book with a positive outlook. Her final point is empathetic scholarship, as proposal for a better, comprehensive analysis. Humility and affection should guide us, she argues. Taking seriously her suggestion to delve into the incomprehensibility and the ineffability of Blackness might also, in turn, help us to understand the effects of the coronavirus crisis better and in their full spectrum: as the combination of racial and other forms of marginalization.
[i] In this essay, initially both „black“ with small initial letter and „Black“ with capital letter had been used, primarily related to the usage of the respective author. On the ocassion of recent developments, all mentionings have been capitalized both in the sources and the text. For recent discussions regarding capitalizing Black see e.g. Coleman, Nancy, „Why We’re Capitalizing Black“, The New York Times, July 5, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-Black.html. Last retrieved: 22 July, 2020.
[ii] African Studies Association, Statement by the African Studies Association on Police Violence and Racism in the United States, June 6, 2020. https://africanstudies.org/advocacy/statement-by-the-african-studies-association-on-police-violence-and-racism-in-the-united-states/. Last retrieved: 22 June, 2020.
[iii] E.g. Williams, Joseph P, “Rumor, Disparity and Distrust: Why Black Americans Face an Uphill Battle Against COVID-19. Decades of unequal treatment and poorer health outcomes threaten to undermine the Black community during the current coronavirus pandemic”, U. S. News, March 25, 2020. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-03-25/why-Black-americans-face-an-uphill-battle-against-the-coronavirus%3fcontext=amp. Last retrieved: 18 April, 2020.
[iv] Williams, Rumor, Disparity, and Distrust, ibid.
[v]Inspiration has also been taken from Adorno, Theodor W.; Bob Hullot-Kentor; Frederic Will, “The Essay as Form”. New German Critique, No. 32, Spring – Summer, 1984, pp. 151 – 171.
[vi] Mbembe, Achille, Critique of Black Reason, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), p. 1.
[vii] Benjamin, Walter, “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov“, Illuminations, pp. 81-107.
[viii] Ed Pavlic, here from Okiji, Jazz as Critique, p. 71.
[ix] Cf Adorno’s reaction to the 1968 students’ protests. Rath, Norbert, “Horkheimers und Adornos Stellung zur Protestbewegung von ‘1968’”, Kritiknetz – Zeitschrift für Kritische Theorie der Gesellschaft, 2018.
[x] German phrase, best translated as “futile love effort“.
[xi] Adorno, Theodor W, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life, Translated by E.F.N. Jephcott, (London: Verso, 2005). Interestingly, developed these essays during American exile.
[xii] E. g. as “Ausgangssperre” and “Kontaktbeschränkung” in Germany.
[xiii] E. g. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Denise Lu and Gabriel J.X., “Dance Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury”, 3 April, 2020, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/us/coronavirus-stay-home-rich-poor.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage. Last retrieved: 22 June, 2020; Charles M. Bow, “Social Distancing Is a Privilege. The idea that this virus is an equal-opportunity killer must itself be killed.” 5 April, 2020, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/opinion/coronavirus-social-distancing.html. Last retrieved: 22 June, 2020.
[xiv]Compare also Mueller, Benjamin, “Eight U.K. Doctors Died From Coronavirus. All Were Immigrants”, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/world/europe/coronavirus-doctors-immigrants.html?fbclid=IwAR0uQAJPcS30-xzDrRXHQoZki2XmFJcoOMt7m6dPjWvKJmP8yMkWaHUyWwM. 8 April, 2020. Last retrieved: 22 June, 2020.
[xv] Stover, A. Shahid, Being and Insurrection, (New York: Cannae Press, 2019).
[xvi] See for example Gordon, Lewis, Bad Faith and AntiBlack Racism, (Amherst: Humanity Books, 1995); Sexton, Jared, “Ante-Anti-Blackness: Afterthoughts”, Lateral. Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, Issue 1, 2012.
[xvii] Ayeh, Diana, “Review of: Mbembe, Achille. Critique of Black Reason. Durham: Duke University Press. 2017”, Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 21 September, 2019, https://www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-26688. Last retrieved: 22 July, 2020.
[xviii] Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason, p. 136.
[xix] Mbembe, ibid., p. 85.
[xx] Mbembe, ibid., p. 4.
[xxi] Mbembe, ibid., p. 4.
[xxii] Adorno, Theodor W., Negative Dialectics, Translated by E.B. Ashton, (London: Routledge, 1973). For a summary see also Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, „Theodor W. Adorno“, First published 5 May, 2003; substantive revision 26 October, 2015. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/ Last retrieved: 21 July, 2020.
[xxiii] Mbembe, ibid., p. 6.
[xxiv]The Editors of Third Text, “On the Murder of George Floyd and the Demand for Racial Justice”, published online at Third Text. Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, 18 June, 2020. http://www.thirdtext.org/. Last retrieved: 23 June, 2020.
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