The lecture explores the early tradition of Black republicanism from the 1830s to the 1850s. Rogers argues that African American activists and intellectuals made a sustained contribution to the political-philosophical tradition of republicanism that is worth reconsidering. In their writings we find them reimagining civic virtue, community, and the place of culture in securing freedom for African Americans that differ significantly from those traditionally recognized as belonging to this tradition.
Professor Rogers has wide-ranging interests in contemporary democratic theory and the history of American and African-American political thought. He is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2008). His second book, The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought is forthcoming from Princeton University Press 2023.
In addition, he has edited John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Ohio University Press, 2016) and African American Political Thought: A Collected History (University of Chicago Press, 2021), a collection of 30 essays on figures in the tradition of African American political thought co-edited with Jack Turner. His articles appear in major academic journals and popular venues such as Dissent, the Atlantic, Public Seminar, and Boston Review.
Professor Rogers now serves as the co-editor of Oxford University Press' New Histories of Philosophy series. The series attends to the unstudied resources in the history of philosophy. Although I'm interested in the entire series, I'm especially keen to build its list in Africana Philosophy. Register for this event here.