Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World

by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson

Argues that blackness disrupts our essential ideas of race, gender, and, ultimately, the human



Rewriting the pernicious, enduring relationship between blackness and animality in the history of Western science and philosophy, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World breaks open the rancorous debate between black critical theory and posthumanism. Through the cultural terrain of literature by Toni Morrison, Nalo Hopkinson, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler, the art of Wangechi Mutu and Ezrom Legae, and the oratory of Frederick Douglass, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson both critiques and displaces the racial logic that has dominated scientific thought since the Enlightenment. In so doing, Becoming Human demonstrates that the history of racialized gender and maternity, specifically antiblackness, is indispensable to future thought on matter, materiality, animality, and posthumanism.

Jackson argues that African diasporic cultural production alters the meaning of being human and engages in imaginative practices of world-building against a history of the bestialization and thingification of blackness--the process of imagining the black person as an empty vessel, a non-being, an ontological zero--and the violent imposition of colonial myths of racial hierarchy. She creatively responds to the animalization of blackness by generating alternative frameworks of thought and relationality that disrupt not only the racialization of the human/animal distinction found in Western science and philosophy but also by challenging the epistemic and material terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. What emerges is a radically unruly sense of a being, knowing, feeling existence: one that necessarily ruptures the foundations of "the human."

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Race, Academic, Theory, History, Feminism

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Alok Vaid-Menon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly genius and theoretically sophisticated work revealing how antiblackness is the foundation of modern categories of gender, sex, human, animal, reality, and matter itself.

[L'lerrét Jazelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew, I hate reading books coming out of the academy because I swear it takes me EONS to finish them lol. And this book was no different. But I did enjoy the larger idea concerning Blackness and it’s relationship to humanness and how foggy and complicated and confusing the achievement of “civil right” or basic “humanization” could be given its roots. The concept of plasticity was eye opening and I also really loved the exploration of this idea that health factors are a result of socioeconomic status and disposability and not gene related racial diversification.

But, Chile, if you aren’t of the academy, I’d err on the side of caution when getting this. Mama will talk in circles and jargon you the hell up lol. I would find myself having read 5 pages and only have one major takeaway I could understand. So beware.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential intervention in posthuman theory, deftly connecting Western understandings of the human/animal binary to race and gender as a necessary intermediary. Precisely argued, brilliant in her use of theory, and insightful in the analysis of cultural texts, this book is a tremendous accomplishment that will impact a variety of different fields significantly.

[Siera Hanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowowow! I actually listened to this as an audio book, it was my first time listening to an audio book, this book is quite dense and academic. I found myself being so distracted keeping the grammar straight in my head, or looking away to look up a word or allusion, that I was reading quite slowly. That being said once I got the Audiobook I found myself really taken with this book, and excited to be challenged by the content rather than daunted, so I am really grateful that listening is an option. I did have to take a break to buy and read another book (Octavia Butler's Bloodchild) to avoid spoilers before I could finish this book (Although I skipped purchasing several other mentioned texts). This book goes deep and you have to be ready to do some work for it, but if you are it is so so worth it.

This is truly a work of genius within the field of literature analysis, anti-Blackness theory, and ontology. A deeply thoughtful work with aesthetic, academic and practical applications. I am so grateful to have been recommended this book. Anyone who is frustrated with the continued exaltation of Western European Enlightenment and 'Humanist' philosophy despite the demonstrable violence of these philosophers and philosophies would be well served to have Jackson's theory in their heads as well.

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson is rigorous and thorough. Her work is revolutionary, and also is a part of a great tradition of thought and she does a great job of making very clear what other works are important. I always really like that especially in ontology which can get weirdly competitive. I found myself researching dozens of people, works, events, and topics in order to follow this work and it was awesome.

I found my self internally cheering as Jackson used art to take apart historical ontologies. 'Yes overturn the concept of the Animal! Overturn childhood! Overturn binary human gender and reproduction! Overturn-reframe-overturn-reframe biological race and epigenetics!'.

I would love for elements of this text to be made more accessible for people of various literacy levels, but I understand that to be difficult reading is also part of the tradition of ontology. I also want to look into folks in the realms of Sociology, Public Health, Medicine and Policy who are responding to some of the ideas put forth in this text.

[winnie]

I honestly don't feel qualified to rate this book because there is much that I did not understand. I can say, however, that the author offers an engaging take on the relationship of race and continental ontologies. Her concepts of plasticity to describe the state of being in which the enslaved were pushed into is one that I hope to keep mulling over to think through the different aspects slavery. Nonetheless, this is a heavily philosophical book and the reader must know that. It begins in medias res, grappling with philosophical debates not accessible to a general public -- or even an academic public that's not well read in philosophical traditions.

[Jozef Syndicate · Rating 4 out of 5]

First impression? Whew! (actually it was more like "!@?&! Are we ready for this?! ).

Collectively we agreed that we are ready and began reading Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World, which proved to be the intellectual challenge we anticipated.  Scholars of Black studies, literature, and humanities, buckle up.

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, who is an English professor, is rewriting the relationship between Blackness and animality that permeates Western philosophy, literature, and science. 

Throughout the book she builds the argument  that dynamic African diasporic literature and art alter the historical depiction and meaning of being human. She shows how the cultural works of Toni Morrison, Wangechi Mutu, and others present humanity that's at odds with animalization. They  counter the pattern of bestializing and "thingificating" Blackness.

Jackson includes the argument for deeper thought in science, critical theory, philosophy, ontology, and history.

In today's anti-racist climate, "Becoming Human" lends valuable context to the constant presentation that dehumanizes Black people and imagines Blacks as nothing, non-beings, or empty vessels.

Jackson writes, "I maintain that Blackness, and the abject fleshly figures that bear the weight of the world, is a being (something rather than nothing, perhaps even everything), and I aim to reveal and unsettle the machinations that suggest Blackness is nothingness. "

However, her academic writing is not for the casual or even the most thoughtful and erudite reader. 3.5-star. Academicians, enjoy.

#jozefbookandbrew 

[Chloë Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

i found becoming human to be incredibly well done overall. it is sitting squarely in conversations around humanity and blackness and conceptualizations of being while interceding into the form, building a new thing that is separate from but still analogous to the original. i particularly enjoyed her analysis of beloved and narrative of the life which felt very new and were takes i hadn't heard before her perspective on animalization in blackness writ large i think is incredibly well done, nuanced, and full of consideration of the multiplicities of what is black and what is human. i did struggle a bit near the middle as we got to figurations around bugs and the like but i understood the intellectual merit of the thing. just not up my alley persay. i also think the book was quite a bit small and sometimes the phrasing structure of the compound sentences when read on audiobook were difficult to follow. i think this is a book best read in multiformat or with audiobook and physical at once to get the full effect. i quite enjoyed it though and would recommend to anyone interested in delving more into this world of being and matter and blackness and life. 4 stars even.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure I’m really convinced by the intervention that this book is making relative to the litany of others that Jackson cites (Moten, Wilderson, Hartman, Spillers, Sharpe, Weheliye, etc) who have taken up the Wynterian project of critiquing abject Blackness in Enlightenment thought. Perhaps it is the sloppy engagement with anthropology as a field or that I’m just not animated by posthumanism, but it’s fine.

[Melvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant read. I most enjoyed the introduction, chapter 1 on the (neo)slave narrative, and the coda, as these were most clear for me. Chapters 2-4 were interesting, but outside of my knowledge/expertise as literary critiques and exemplars; nevertheless, they were useful in demonstrating Jackson's point on the plasticization of blackness. Although the text is quite dense, I would highly recommend this book.

[Brandon Scott Butcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great criticism of the lack of racial discourse within the new materialism movement and object-oriented ontology. In particular, the section on Octavia Butler and interspecies entanglement was lit. I’d be greatly disappointed if Jackson and her work didn’t find its way into the post-colonial canon in the next decade.

[amyleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if the words will come for this one. Zakiyyah Iman Jackson's project shifted my thinking so so much. The thoroughness of her working throughs is tinge always with her curiosity and a reach for questions beyond. She takes up her texts with such care. A lesson in thinking and holding, here.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important lesson in the way scientific discourses used in posthumanist/new materialist theory can be sutured with anti-black racism. The introduction and "Not our Own" were my favorite chapters. Strong coda that discusses the consequences of solely focusing on economic class to address racism.

[Margaryta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will want to, and need to, revisit this book in the future. It has so much to offer that it requires slow and careful reading and rewards those who do. It's possible to organize a day-long discussion about this work.

[Seth Shimelfarb-Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a category of its own. Truly. Chapter 1/3 force us to rethink so many of our impulses in regards to non human ontology. Dense in the fullest sense of the word. Scared to present on this. Not my first read and still very tricky.

[William O. II · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read.

[Mills College Library]

809.8896 J147 2020

[Terrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was an interesting Listen. I'm going to buy the book, I'm interested how I'd feel about the book after a read.

[Beth Quick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really challenging, engaging book. Highly recommend.

[steds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardcore philosophy, do not enter as the layperson. Pushes some convos forward in really important ways, helpful for epigenetics in the coda.

[Kaitlin Hubbert Burrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so good, but so hard to read. 4.5

[Kia Sconiers]

too smart for me, will try again later.

[Hebbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

get a study group together for like 12 weeks (or however long it takes, this is a pretty dense book) and you will come out on the other side with at least +3 INT