{"product_id":"at-the-margins-of-nihilism-deconstruction-and-social-death-paperback","title":"At the Margins of Nihilism: Deconstruction and Social Death - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJohn E. Drabinski\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDocumenting senses of life and practices of refusal hidden at the edges of Black literature and thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A fascinating book that we need now more than ever. Brilliantly juxtaposing the literatures on deconstruction and social death, Drabinski poses clearly a central dilemma, though its solution is daunting: How can an ostensibly socially dead being (e.g. a Black person in a society founded on antiblack animus) ever become free and live free in a polity constructed to ensure that person's unfreedom?\"\u003cb\u003e--Neil Roberts, Williams College\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAt the Margins of Nihilism \u003c\/i\u003eoffers a wide-ranging series of reflections on issues of enduring importance and interest--colonialism, racism (specifically antiblackness), and social death--through an engagement with major figures in continental philosophy and Black Studies. The book is the work of a mature thinker who moves between philosophical and literary traditions with ease and comfort.\"\u003cb\u003e--Lisa Guenther, Queen's University\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe multi-century event of enslavement and colonialism changed the cultural and political imagination of the Atlantic world. We still live and work in the horizon of that event. It was an event that placed a violent Manichean structure of antiblackness at the foundation of our shared world. What kinds of life are possible in nihilistic, antiblack worlds of social death? Is it possible to imagine life outside the reach of those worlds? What decolonial methods help us understand that form of life in relation to expressive cultures of resistance and refusal? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eAt the Margins of Nihilism \u003c\/i\u003edevelops a theoretical frame through a comparative reading of Jacques Derrida and Orlando Patterson. Reading between deconstruction and social death, Drabinski describes a notion of life as interstitial, situated outside the play of life and death in systems of antiblackness. This notion of life has broad epistemological, existential, and ontological implications. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing from a diverse set of sources including Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Gloria Anzald?a, and others, \u003ci\u003eAt the Margins of Nihilism\u003c\/i\u003e shows how the nihilisms of Richard Wright, Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, and contemporary afropessimism operate as a closed system. Each system is opened by vernacular forms of life and practices of refusal. Those forms and practices speak to the power and significance of life that persists across centuries of antiblack culture, social life, and political hegemony. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn E. Drabinski\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of African American and Africana Studies and English at the University of Maryland.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn E. Drabinski\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of African American and Africana Studies and English at the University of Maryland. He is author of \u003ci\u003eSo Unimaginable a Price: Baldwin and the\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eBlack Atlantic \u003c\/i\u003e(2025), \u003ci\u003eAtlantic Theory: On the Vicissitudes of Relation \u003c\/i\u003e(2025), \u003ci\u003eGlissant and\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ethe Middle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ePassage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss \u003c\/i\u003e(2019), \u003ci\u003eTheorizing Glissant: Sites and\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCitations \u003c\/i\u003e(2015), \u003ci\u003eLevinas and the Postcolonial: Race, Nation, Other \u003c\/i\u003e(2011), \u003ci\u003eGodard Between\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eIdentity and Difference \u003c\/i\u003e(2008), and \u003ci\u003eSensibility and Singularity: The Problem\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eof Phenomenology\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ein Levinas \u003c\/i\u003e(2001).\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 224\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.46 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e January 20, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45431952638054,"sku":"9781531512378","price":60.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/jnKLzHAdKG9781531512378.webp?v=1775818225","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/at-the-margins-of-nihilism-deconstruction-and-social-death-paperback","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}