“This work calls us to stretch our beliefs about what is possible—both in educational contexts and beyond. I hope the book is received as a contribution to the long genealogy of writers, thinkers, artists, builders, and ordinary folks at work in bringing forth new worlds,” said Wilson Kwamogi Okello, MS ’12, announcing his new book, On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to be Human.

The book critiques human development and academic knowledge production, arguing that Black specificity can create new possibilities for Black being. Okello closely examines holistic development theory, aiming not to reform but to reimagine the “self” it presupposes. Taking what he describes as a multimodal and multisensory approach, Okello engages a chorus of writers, thinkers, and cultural workers—Baldwin, Bambara, Brand, Hartman, Lorde, Sharpe, Spillers, Wilderson, and more—to reframe Blackness as a social, political, and historical matrix, going beyond the study of Black experiences, biology, or culture. Punctuated throughout by stunning images from artist Mikael Owunna’s “Infinite Essence” series, the book proposes and enacts a methodological attunement to Blackness that can guide theory, policy, and practice toward an alternative praxis for the benefit of Black living.

Okello is assistant professor of higher education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, and director of Black Study Education Lab at Pennsylvania State University.

On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to be Human is available wherever books are sold and from SUNY Press using the following link:  https://sunypress.edu/Books/O/On-Blackness-Liveliness-and-What-It-Means-to-Be-Human