Aside from Ontology, Toward Blackness

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Victor Anderson’s Beyond Ontological Blackness anticipates some of the key debates and concerns within contemporary black studies. Anderson’s groundbreaking text exposes tendencies within African American cultural thought to essentialise blackness, to ascribe totalising qualities to black life and limit possibilities for fulfilment and transcendence. He responds to these often-unexamined commitments to ontological blackness by turning to a postmodern conception of difference and plurality. I show how Anderson’s concerns resonate with authors like Fred Moten, Nahum Chandler, and Michelle Wright, thinkers who re-imagine blackness in a manner that circumvents pure beginnings (Chandler and Moten) and accounts of black experience that unduly prioritise slavery and the middle passage (Wright). My basic claim is that black studies and related fields should continue thinking about blackness, non-being, and differentiation, enduring problems that Anderson’s work provides a guide to confront.