James Haile III

  • Associate Professor, Advisor
  • Philosophy: Swan 149
  • Email: james_haile@uri.edu
  • Office Location: Dept of Philosophy
    Swan Hall
    Kingston, RI 02881

Biography

Dr. Haile’s research and teaching interests intersect recent Continental philosophy (especially Aesthetics), Philosophy and/of Literature, Philosophy of Place, Africana Philosophy, and Philosophy and/of Race. Specifically, he is interested in the intersection of 20th century American and African America Literature and Existentialism. James was named the URI Philosophy Ebbs Fellow for 2024-2026, and he was a recipient of the 2022 College of Arts and Sciences Research Excellence Award.

Research

Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison (esp their writings on place and nature), Jean-Paul Sartre (esp his writings on jazz), James Baldwin (esp his writings on language and religion), black aesthetics (esp contemporary genre aesthetics of hip hop).

Education

  • Ph.D. Duquesne University, 2014
  • M.A. University of Memphis, 2008
  • B.A. Morehouse College, 2002

Selected Publications

Selected Academic Scholarship

The Buck, the Black, and the Existential Hero (Northwestern UP, 2020) https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810141650/the-buck-the-black-and-the-existential-hero/

The Dark Delight of Being Strange (Columbia UP, 2024) Award: Winner, 2025 Hugh J. Silverman Book Prize, Association for Philosophy and Literature https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-dark-delight-of-being-strange/9780231216302

  • Book talks:
    • March 13, 2025. 7-9 pm. Riffraff Bookstore and Bar. Providence, RI
    • March 25, 2025. 5-7 pm. Department of English, University of Rhode Island
    • April 11, 2025. 6-8 pm. Symposium Books, Providence, RI
    • May 5, 2025. New Books Network. Virtual Book talk
    • June 16, 2025. The Philosopher, “On Philosophy” series. Virtual interview.
    • July 10, 2025. 5-7 pm. Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) North Adams, MA 01247
    • TBA. Brown University Bookstore.
    • TBA. ASALAH (Association for the Study of African American Life and History)

Philosophical Meditations on Richard Wright (Lexington Press)

Thinking through Baldwin, edited collection (forthcoming)

“Afro-‘American’ Writing: Motifs of Place” (published in Philosophizing the Americas: An Inter-American Discourse (Fordham University Press)

Richard Wright: The ‘Nature’ of Politics, The ‘Politics’ of Nature (published in A Political Companion to Richard Wright, University of Kentucky Press)

 Selected Public Scholarship

 “The ‘Gift’ of Black Art.” Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics Case Studies (April 2023) https://www.bloomsburyphilosophylibrary.com/custom-browse?docid=BloomsburyContemporaryAestheticsCaseStudies

“Thelonious.” APA Studies on Philosophy and the Black Experience (formerly APA Newsletters) Vol. 23, no. 2 (Spring 2024) https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/collection/950518C1-3421-484C-8153-CDA6ED737182/BlackExperienceV23n2.pdf