Gender and the Thought of Cornel West

Abstract

23 Cornel West’s writings are being cited on a number of fronts, and it is not uncommon to hear his name mentioned in academic circles having to do with religion, Black Studies, philosophy, cultural studies, and a number of other pursuits. Most strikingly, perhaps, West is often taken to be one of the chief exponents of the “new pragmatism,” and along with Richard Rorty, he is frequently touted as one of the chief theoreticians of the contemporary version of this long-established American philosophical tradition.1 West’s work is striking for its general liberatory theme, its range, and the development of a number of lines of other sorts of theory that intersect, in his work, with pragmatism—Marxism, criticism of the arts, sexuality and gender studies issues, and so forth. Although there is no question that his work strikes a generally feminist-friendly tone (he has, for example, co-authored a work with Sylvia Ann Hewlett), parts of West’s work exhibit a number of the androcentric tendencies that contemporary feminist critics have often associated with other, more rigorously analytic work.2 In a recent work critical of West’s initial heavy reliance on Marxism as a liberatory strategy, and subsequent turn from it, the political scientist Mark David Wood argues that West’s most recent, less overtly theoretical work represents a failure to follow through on the promise of his original project. But one theme has remained comparatively consistent throughout West’s work: he relies on a number of overarching categories to concoct a large scheme, one that provides, if not Answers, at least a path toward such Answers. In this paper I will argue that the feminist reader can still discern a great deal of androcentrism in West’s work, although the net results for feminism may indeed be beneficial. I shall begin with an examination of his early work. Gender and the Thought of Cornel West