Cornel West

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Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a prominent American scholar and public intellectual. Formerly at Harvard University, West is currently a professor of Religion at Princeton. West's intellectual contributions draw from such diverse traditions as the African American Baptist Church, Marxism, pragmatism, and transcendentalism.

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Biography

The grandson of a preacher, as a young man he marched in civil rights demonstrations and organized to demand black studies courses at his high school. West later wrote that in his youth he admired "the sincere black militancy of Malcolm X, the defiant rage of the Black Panther Party, and the livid black theology of James Cone."

After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento, California, he enrolled at Harvard University at age 17, and graduated in three years, magna cum laude in Near Eastern languages and literature. He went to Princeton to complete his graduate education, where he was influenced by professor Richard Rorty, and specifically his dedication to the pragmatist school of philosophy. His dissertation, completed in 1980, was later revised and published as The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought. In his mid-twenties he returned to Harvard as a Du Bois fellow before becoming an assistant professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

In 1984, he went to Yale Divinity School, in what eventually became a joint appointment in American studies. While at Yale he participated in campus protests for a clerical union and divestment from apartheid South Africa, one of which resulted in his being arrested and jailed. As punishment, the university administration cancelled his leave for Spring 1987, leading him to commute between Yale (where he was teaching two classes) and the University of Paris (where he was teaching three).

He then returned to Union for a year before going to Princeton to become a professor of religion and director of the Program in African American Studies, which he revitalized in cooperation with such scholars as novelist Toni Morrison. He served as director of the program from 1988 to 1994.

1993 saw the publication of Race Matters, a bestselling collection of essays, as well as his departure from Princeton to join the Afro-American studies program at Harvard, chaired by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (who called West "the preeminent African-American intellectual of our generation"). In 1998, Harvard appointed him the first Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., University Professor.

West's popularity was not, however, universal. Critics, most notably The New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, charged him with opportunism, crass showmanship, and lack of scholarly seriousness. West remains a widely cited scholar in the popular press, in African-American studies, and in studies of black theology, although his work as an academic philosopher has been almost completely ignored (with the exception of his early history of American pragmatism, The American Evasion of Philosophy).

In 2001, West became involved in a very public dispute with newly appointed Harvard president and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. (As one of the 17 faculty members with the distinguished rank of University Professor, West reported directly to the president on his research agendas and was permitted total freedom to teach across departmental lines and in other Harvard schools.) Summers, in one of his meetings with West, allegedly accused West of devoting too much time and attention to political activities and traditionally non-academic pursuits, such as producing the hip hop album Sketches of My Culture at the expense of his teaching and academic responsibilities.

Soon after, West was hospitalized for prostate cancer. West complained that Summers failed to send him get-well wishes until weeks after his surgery, whereas newly-installed Princeton president Shirley Tilghman had contacted him frequently before and after his treatment. In 2002, West left Harvard to return to Princeton. West later lashed out at Summers in public interviews, calling him "the Ariel Sharon of higher education" on NPR's The Tavis Smiley Show.

In 2003 West appeared as Councillor West in the science fiction films Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, and recorded commentaries on philosophy for all three films in the Matrix trilogy for their DVD release, along with New Age spiritualist Ken Wilber.

West published Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, his follow-up to Race Matters, in 2004. In the book, West calls on Americans to "forge a mature hope that fortifies us on the slippery tightrope of Socratic questioning and prophetic witness in imperial America."

The introduction to The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought, entitled "The Making of an American Democratic Socialist of African Descent" is an autobiographical essay. In addition, the first section of The Cornel West Reader, entitled "Autobiographical Prelude," provides further information on West's personal and intellectual background.

West is a prominent member of Alpha Phi Alpha, an African-American fraternity .

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Politics

West is unusually politically active for a scholar of his reputation. He describes himself as a "non-Marxist socialist" (due to Marx's opposition to religion), and serves as honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which he has described as "the first multiracial, socialist organization close enough to my politics that I could join."

He has been involved with such projects as the Million Man March and Russell Simmons's Hip-Hop Summit, and worked with such controversial figures as Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton, whose 2004 presidential campaign West advised.

In 2000, West was a senior advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley. When Bradley lost in the primaries, West became a prominent endorser of Ralph Nader, even speaking at some Nader rallies. Some Greens had sought to draft West to run as a presidential candidate in 2004, but he refused, citing his participation in the Sharpton campaign.

West, along with other prominent Nader 2000 supporters, signed the Vote to Stop Bush statement urging progressive voters in swing states to vote for John Kerry, despite strong disagreements with many of Kerry's policies. West recently signed the statement of the antifascist group The World Can't Wait—Drive Out the Bush Regime.

West also serves as co-chair of the Tikkun Community. He co-chaired the National Parenting Organization's Task Force on Parent Empowerment, and participated in President Clinton's National Conversation on Race.

He has publicly endorsed In These Times magazine by calling it: "The most creative and challenging newsmagazine of the American left."

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Published works

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Reference

  • "Cornel Ronald West." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 33. Edited by Ashyia Henderson. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
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External links

fr:Cornel West

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