La Marr Jurelle Bruce Wins 2022 Caribbean Philosophical Association Book Award
March 04, 2022
“How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind” explores Black radical creativity.
By Jessica Weiss ’05
Associate Professor of American Studies La Marr Jurelle Bruce has received a 2022 outstanding book award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA) for his 2021 book “How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind.”
The Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award is intended to award a work that contributes to “Caribbean thought and philosophical literature.”
In a statement on the CPA’s website, President Hanétha Vété-Congolo, who is a professor of romance languages at Bowdoin College, congratulated Bruce for the award “and the philosophico-poetic gem that allowed it.”
Bruce’s book explores the concept of madness in Black radical art, from the writings of Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange and Gayl Jones to the music of singers Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill and Kendrick Lamar. Bruce proposes a four-part framework to “ponder the meaning and matter of madness in modernity.”
The CPA’s 2022 awardees also include political activist and scholar Angela Davis, historian and political activist Barbarra Ransby, Black feminist scholar Beverly Guy-Sheftall and other esteemed thinkers and writers, who Bruce said he admires “immensely.”
“I’m honored, humbled and awe-struck to receive this award—especially alongside my fellow CPA laureates,” Bruce said.
The awards will be given at the CPA’s annual conference, to be held at Michigan State University October 27–29. The theme will be “Shifting the Geography of Reason XX: Philosophy, Literature, and Liberation.”
Click here to read an interview with Bruce about “How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind.”