New Books in Philosophy John Drabinski, "So Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the Black Atlantic" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
Feb 18, 2026
John Drabinski, professor of African American and Africana Studies and English, discusses reading James Baldwin as a philosophical thinker. He situates Baldwin within the midcentury Black Atlantic and probes absences in Baldwin’s nonfiction. Topics include Baldwin’s origin narratives, his images of identity, Black English as world-making, alternatives to Afro-pessimism, and Baldwin versus Fanon on culture and shame.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Lima Conversation That Changed Course
- John Drabinski recounts a conference conversation in Lima that redirected his work toward the Americas and Black intellectual traditions.
- That exchange led him to a decade-long reading project and eventual focus on Baldwin and the Black Atlantic.
Reading Baldwin Through the Black Atlantic
- Drabinski reads Baldwin within the mid-century Black Atlantic to reveal absences as well as presences in Baldwin's thought.
- He argues that reading what Baldwin omits (diaspora, Pan-Africanism) is as revealing as reading his explicit references.
Auction Block As Founding Origin
- Baldwin centers the auction block and the spirituals as the foundational origin for African-American identity rather than the Middle Passage.
- Drabinski views that origin-story choice as central to Baldwin's claim that African-Americans constitute a singular people.
