Book Overview

Why do people hate one another? Who gets to speak for whom? Why do so many people combat prejudice based on their race, sexual orientation, or disability? What does segregation look like today? Many of us ponder and discuss urgent questions such as these at home, and see them debated in the media, the classroom, and our social media feeds, but many of us don’t have access to the important new ways philosophers are thinking about these very issues. Enter UnMute, the popular podcast hosted by Myisha Cherry, which hosts a diverse group of philosophers and explores their cutting-edge work through casual conversation.

This book collects 31 of Cherry’s lively and timely interviews, offering an accessible resource through which to encounter some of philosophy’s most socially and politically engaged, public-facing work. Its original illustrations, depicting the interview subjects up close, show just how broad a range of philosophers–black, white, and brown, male and female, queer and straight, abled and disabled–are at the center of crucial contemporary conversations. Cherry asks philosophers to talk about their ideas in ways that anyone can understand, explaining how they got interested in philosophy, and why the questions they investigate matter urgently.

Along with the interviews, the volume provides a foreword by Cornel West, a section in which all the interviewees explain how they got into philosophy, and a “Say What?” glossary defining terms that might be new to some readers. Like the podcast that inspired it, the book welcomes in those new to these philosophical questions, those captivated by questions of race, class, gender, and other issues and looking for a new lens through which to examine them, and those well-versed in public philosophy looking for a one-stop guide.

Sample Chapter

A Note on Conversations (Proof Pages) 
On Conversations: Talk at Stanford University

Reviews

Teaching and Philosophy, Vol: 44:2

Order

Where can you order the book?
How about your local bookstore: Indiebound
Online Retailer: Amazon
The Publisher: Oxford University Press

Contributors

Section 1: Politics and Society
1. Meena Krishnamurthy on Political Distrust
2. Denise James on Political Illusions
3. Lori Gruen on Prisons
4. Jose Mendoza on Immigration
5. Wendy Salkin on Informal Political Representation

Section 2: Language, Knowledge, and Power
6. Rachel Ann McKinney on Police and Language
7. Cassie Herbert on Risky Speech
8. Luvell Anderson on Slurs and Racial Humor
9. Jason Stanley on Speech, Satire, and Public Philosophy
10. Winston Thompson on Educational Justice

Section 3: Social Groups and Activism
11. Serene Khader on Cross-Border Feminist Solidarity
12. Joel Michael Reynolds on Disability
13. Elizabeth Barnes on The Minority Body
14. Douglas Ficek on Frantz Fanon and Black Lives Matter
15. Rachel V. McKinnon on Allies and Active Bystanders
16. Kyle Whyte on Indigenous Resilience & Environmental Change
17. Andrea Pitts on Feminist Indigenous Resistance to Neoliberalism

Section 4: Race and Economics
18. David Livingstone Smith on Dehumanization
19. Linda Alcoff on The Future of Whiteness
20. Chike Jeffers on Black Political Thought
21. Larry Blum on Teaching Race
22. Tommie Shelby on Dark Ghettos
23. David McClean on Money and Materialism
24. Vanessa Wills on Marxism and Today

Section 5: Gender, Sex, and Love
25. Nancy Bauer on Pornography
26. John Corvino on Homosexuality
27. Tom Digby on the Problem of Masculinity
28. Justin Clardy on Love and Relationships

Section 6: Emotions and Art in Public Life
29. Paul C. Taylor on Black Aesthetics
30. Amir Jaima on the Power of Literature
31. Adrienne Martin on Hope