George Yancy Books

George Yancy, a professor of philosophy, centers his work on the critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, and the philosophy of the Black experience. He delves into the formation of African-American philosophical thought within the context of anti-Black racism, Black agency, and identity formation. His current research investigates whiteness as an embedded social reality and a source of opacity, theorized as 'white ambush.' Yancy critically examines how whiteness, as an embodied phenomenon, is shaped by historical forces and how white individuals unreflectively live their whiteness in relation to the distortion of Black bodies. His work also explores the Black lived experience (Black Erlebnis), encompassing subjectivity, spatial mobility, and embodied resistance, while interweaving philosophy with biography to understand the construction of philosophical beliefs within historical and cultural frameworks.