The Invitation of Blackness

The Invitation of Blackness offers a rigorous, interdisciplinary study at the intersection of Black Studies, Psychoanalysis, and Literary Theory. Drawing on thinkers including Fred Moten, Marquis Bey, Nahum Chandler, and Jacques Lacan, Jake Reeder explores what he terms the invitation of blacknessa conceptual and ethical call to engage the radical potential of blackness beyond identitarian confines.Through close readings of Toni Morrison's Sula and a psychoanalytic case study of abolitionist John Brown, the book examines how blackness functions as both a site of social negation and a horizon of transformative possibility. Reeder situates this inquiry within debates on Afropessimism, paraontology, and the psychic structures of race, arguing that sublimationthe creation of new social values from what society deems valuelessoffers a framework for thinking revolutionary change. Engaging with Derrida's notion of the eskhaton and Lacanian concepts of desire and the mirror stage, the book reconsiders the role of race in subject formation and interrogates the limits of psychoanalytic formalism. Combining Literary Criticism, Deconstruction, and Critical Race Theory, The Invitation of Blackness contributes to ongoing conversations about the ethics of reading, the politics of whiteness, and the future of psychoanalysis in relation to race. This work will appeal to scholars and advanced students in Black Studies, Psychoanalysis, Continental Philosophy, and Literary Theory seeking a nuanced account of race, desire, and the possibilities of social transformation.

Explores how psychoanalysis and Black Studies intersect to rethink race, desire, and subject formation Offers close readings of Toni Morrison's Sula and John Brown to illuminate blackness as radical potential Introduces the concept of sublimating blackness to envision new social values beyond whiteness

Autorentext

Jake Reeder is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Marist College and a training psychoanalyst at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. He teaches courses in Deconstruction, Black Studies, and Psychoanalysis. His forthcoming book Derrida and Prosthetic Usage (2026) reflects his expertise in continental philosophy and critical theory. Reeder is also the creator of digital humanities projects returntocinder.com and databyss.org used in research and teaching.

Inhalt

Part I.- Chapter 1: The Eschatological Character.- Chapter 2: Characterological Tropes.- Chapter 3: The Flood of Value.- Chapter 4: Invagination of the White Fort.- Part II.- Chapter 5: The Claim of Blackness.- Chapter 6: John Brown's Melancholia.- Chapter 7: John Brown's Passion.- Chapter 8: Social Value.- Chapter 9: Desire.- Chapter 10: Sublimation.- Chapter 11: Badiou's Passion of the Real.- Chapter 12: Ordinary Psychosis.- Chapter 13: Fanon's Subaltern Clinic.- Chapter 14: Afropessimism and the Black n'est pas.- Chapter 15: White Symbolic Suicide.- Chapter 16: John Brown's becoming ex-white?.- Part III.- Chapter 17: The outer-space of psychosis.- Chapter 18: Ungendered Flesh and the /Hacked X.