Life After Death? Black Scholars Using Afropessimism to Move the Epistemological Needle

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Interrogating the Black Experience Through Hip-Hop

Abstract

In higher education, the epistemological and methodological tenets that are most revered are from White people. Within this paradigm, Black people’s knowledge creation is situated as durably inferior. This perception of Black knowledge creation is understandable through the lens of afropessimism because Black people, living in the afterlife of slavery, experience social death. Using hip hop inspired storytelling as a modality, we endeavor to challenge epistemological canons prescribing ways of knowing and doing in the academy to determine if there is life after death.

Authors

• V. Thandi Sule, Oakland University

• Lawrence Young, Oakland University