John E. Drabinski, visiting associate professor of Black studies, has recently taken over as co-editor, with Oklahoma City University Professor Scott Davidson, of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy.
The publication—previously called the Journal of French Philosophy and, before that, Bulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Française—has changed its title to reflect its expanded scope: it is now open to scholarship across the French-speaking world, including not just Europe but also North America, the Caribbean and Africa. According to Drabinski, the journal’s current and upcoming issues will focus on philosophical issues and figures as diverse as French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, Martiniquan theorist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon, Tunisian Jewish writer Albert Memmi and former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy has also transformed from a print publication, available through subscription only, to an open-source, open-access online publication, hosted by the University of Pittsburgh Press and their university library system at jffp.org. “If we want to have scholarship from and about the francophone world as a whole,” Drabinski says, explaining the rationale for the change of format, “then access to essays, notes and reviews should be global.” In addition to two new journal issues per year, the website will feature an archive of past issues dating back to 1989. The journal will also remain available in print for individual subscribers.
Michelle Huynh ’11, a biology and Black studies major at Amherst, works with Drabinski as an editorial assistant on the journal.
At Amherst, Drabinski teaches such courses as “Critical Debates in Black Studies” and “Theorizing the Black Atlantic.” His books include Sensibility and Singularity (2001), Godard Between Identity and Difference (2008) and the forthcoming Levinas and the Postcolonial: Race, Nation, Other, and he has published many articles on contemporary European philosophy and Africana theory. His current research interests are Afro-Caribbean critical theory, postcolonialism and the intersection of Europe and the Americas in theorizing memory, history and subjectivity.