Cornel
West
The grandson of a preacher, West was shaped from a young age by religious tradition and political struggle. 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."
He enrolled at Harvard 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 Roty, and specifically his dedication to the pragmatist school of philosophy. His dissertation, 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 NY 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 South Africa, one of which resulted in his being arrested and jailed. As punishment, the university administration cancelled his leave for Spring '87, leading him to commute between Yale (where he was teaching two classes) and the University of Paris.
He then returned to Union for a year before going to Princeton to become a professor of religion and director of the Afro-American studies program, which he revitalized in cooperation with such scholars as novelist Toni Morrison.
The year 1993 saw the publication of Race Matters, a best selling 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, he received the prestigious appointment of University Professor.
West's popularity was not, however, universal. Critics, most notably New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, charged him with opportunism, crass showmanship, and lack of scholarly seriousness. After Race Matters, he failed to produce any significant solo scholarship for several years and instead focused on slight, co-authored and edited volumes and on popularizations. Nevertheless, West remains a widely cited scholar. West never responded to Wieseltier's attack.
In 2001, West became involved in a very public dispute with newly appointed Harvard president Lawrence Summers. (West was one of the 17 faculty members with the distinguished rank of University Professor. University Professor rank faculty report directly to the president on their research agendas.) Summers, in one of his meetings with West, allegedly accused West of devoting too much time and attention to political activities and less traditionally academic pursuits, such as producing a hip hop album (the critically-panned Sketches of my Culture) at the expense of his teaching and academic responsibilities. In 2002, West left Harvard to return to Princeton.
In 2003 West appeared as Councillor West in the science fiction film Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolution, and has recorded commentaries on philosophy for all three films in the Matrix Trilogy for their DVD release.
The introduction to The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought, entitled "The Making of an American Democratic Socialist of African Descent" is an autobiographical essay.
West was a prominent member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.
Compiled by Gibbs
7.18.05
