joshua bennett being property once myself

The assertion by community residents that he was left there like an animal, or else without the considerations that might be afforded to various animals considered kin within the dominant social contexts of an anti-black world.

The irreducible fact of Mike Brown’s body in the street.

When I turned to write not only about animal figures, but animalization as a social, historical, and psychic process, it was always with the ever-proliferating names of the slain in mind. Much of the book was written between 20, and my sense is that the decision to read this particular facet of the Black aesthetic tradition-i.e., the use of animality in 20th and 21st century novels and poetry-was influenced a great deal by the public attention directed in this period towards the State-sanctioned, ritual killings of Black people by police officers, security guards, and vigilantes. Joshua Bennett: My hope is that Being Property Once Myself can contribute to ongoing conversations about Black social life, what Colin Dayan calls civic death, and our ongoing, collective pursuit of human dignity. Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate? His book is Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man. Bennett is the Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. This week’s featured author is Joshua Bennett. In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. “ There is an inextricable bond between black freedom struggle, the study of black letters, and the stewardship of the Earth.” Black thought is environmental thought and Black Studies is, at its core, an ecological critique.

Joshua bennett being property once myself