Jina Fast

Dr. Jina Fast holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and women's and gender studies from Temple University. As a feminist epistemologist, queer theorist, and critical philosopher of race, her work centers theories produced by and through the experiences and work of marginalized folks across disciplines. Dr. Fast's work has been published in the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice, and Hypatia among others. Currently, she is at work on two books. Her first book, titled Decolonizing Existentialism and Phenomenology: The Liberation of Philosophies of Freedom and Identity, will be published in December 2023 by Rowman and Littlefield International, while her second, an edited collection titled The Marcusean Mind, will be published in August 2024.

 

In Decolonizing Existentialism and Phenomenology, Dr. Fast analyzes the history of decolonial existentialist and phenomenological theory in the work of figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Richard Wright, Franz Fanon, Lewis Gordon, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Wynter, and Jamaica Kincaid to reimagine and rewrite the philosophical canon. Phenomenology and existentialism study the structures of consciousness as experienced from the perspective of the subject, yet their methods have been markedly tied to the subjective lived experiences and perspectives of White Europeans and Americans. By centering the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora, gender marginalized people, and queer peoples, Africana existentialist and phenomenologist philosophers in the 20^th and 21^st centuries have been able to generate new frameworks for understanding structures of meaning and consciousness within oppressive colonial orders, thus challenging histories of existentialism and phenomenology that bracket social markers of identity and experiences of social identity. This text represents a study of philosophers seeking to decolonize hegemonic discourses and structures that impede the development of the selves and projects of colonized peoples.