Tracing Black Radical Thought: Colonialism, Race, Class, Women and Gender in the Life and Works of C.L.R. James and Aime Cesaire

This dissertation aims to illuminate the contours of the Black radical tradition, namely its anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist principles, through an examination of the lives and works of C.L.R. James and Aimé Césaire. There are four main goals here: (1) to introduce the trajectory and nuances of the Black radical tradition by way of the contributions of these two contemporaries, (2) to explore the varying expressions of these ideas through the span of several decades of the lives of James and Césaire, (3) to understand the portrayal of gender in some of their most important creative work, and (4) to think through the role that women played in their philosophical development and conception of revolutionary subjecthood.

To meet these objectives, I first interrogate the early life influences of the philosophers in the respective colonies they were born into, including their educational and familial backgrounds, then delve into their engagements with Marxism and left-wing thought more broadly, before considering how gender is presented in their creative writings, and finally how women factor in their emergence and projections of radicalism.

The method of comparative evaluation undertaken in this study lends itself to different pathways to apprehend some of James’ and Césaire’s most significant works. It thereby broaches ground for further research into these figures, while at the same time teasing out threads of the Black radical tradition that ultimately help to validate its utility as an analytical tool within the spectrum of humanist discourse. Moreover, the dissertation shows through the social and political thought of James and Césaire, two twentieth century thinkers from the Caribbean, lies a critical, internationalist, anti-oppressive framework aligned towards the betterment of humanity.