From June 8–14, 2025, I participated in the 2025 Summer Seminar at the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI), held at The New School for Social Research in New York City. I took part in the seminar Black Existentialism and Decolonizing Knowledge, led by Dr. Lewis R. Gordon. Throughout the week, we engaged in intensive reading, discussion, and reflection on key themes in Black existential philosophy, including concepts such as Blackness, existence, humanity, dignity, dehumanization, liberation, freedom, colonial epistemic practices, value, and Black aesthetics. Our seminar explored both historical and contemporary contributions to these themes, with readings from W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis, Anna Julia Cooper, Lewis R. Gordon, and Jane Anna Gordon. In addition to the seminar, I attended lectures by other ICSI faculty: Homi K. Bhabha, Bernard E. Harcourt, and Rashid Khalidi.
It was an intense week of thinking, learning, discussion, and building new relationships with scholars from around the world. Many thanks to ICSI for this unique and generative opportunity.
