Michelle L. Meeks - Research Interests

My research is currently focused on themes of freedom, identity, alienation, recognition, and violent resistance through the lenses of Africana philosophy, Critical Philosophy of Race, and Black Feminist Theory, as well as the dialectical relationship between theory and praxis in social and political philosophy. I explore how these themes appear within the historico-political development of American chattel slavery and 20th-century European racial colonialism as material systems of oppression and exploitation. My research is interested in understanding the philosophical underpinnings that inform and are informed by the political struggles for liberation that emerged within these two historical contexts.

 

I have recently defended my dissertation, On the Uses of the Dialectic: Angela Y. Davis, Abolition, and the Afterlives of Slavery. This project begins to analyze how Angela Y. Davis, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Frantz Fanon articulate and radically transform G.W.F. Hegel’s master-slave dialectical schema, showing how it is actually practiced in reality by critically appropriating it in their analyses of the concrete and material dynamics of American chattel slavery (Davis) and European racial colonialism (Sartre and Fanon). I demonstrate how these three thinkers understand slavery and colonialism as concrete systems of oppression and exploitation and investigate how they engage with Hegel to elaborate on themes of freedom, alienation, and violent resistance against these systems. With insights gleaned from Sartre and Fanon, I position Davis as my central dialectical thinker and argue that her work has revitalized dialectical thought since them, accounting for the contradictions that permeated American chattel slavery, the means for its negation through collective consciousness and action, and its enduring legacy in the 21st century. I show how, unlike her predecessors, Davis’s work incorporated critical insights into the interconnections between gender, race, and class, demonstrating the necessity for reading Davis, Sartre, and Fanon together not only in terms of their social and political praxis, but also in terms of the philosophical and dialectical theorization that informs and is informed by it. I demonstrate how this conjoined analysis is essential for social and political scholarship, as well as contemporary liberation movements. This project bridges together Africana, Black feminist, and anti-colonial traditions and methodologies, situating the dialectic within lived diasporic struggle. In tracing these thinkers, my dissertation demonstrates how conceptual tools forged in struggle generate new philosophical frameworks for understanding systemic, contemporary racial violence. In doing so, it emphasizes the mutual relationship between philosophy and the political, social, and epistemic praxes of global Black life.

​

Ultimately, I aim for my future research to examine the methodologies of Davis, Sartre, and Fanon to address the question, “What role does the historical past play for liberatory projects of the practical present?” Central to their approach to liberatory practice is the question of the relationship between the historical past and the practical present. I aim to clarify this relationship within contemporary discussions surrounding practical liberatory projects, ensuring that we build these initiatives with a keen awareness of historical lessons. In all, my work will contribute to conversations in Critical Philosophy of Race, Africana Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy, Critical Theory, and Black Feminist Studies.