On November 1, 2018, The Women¡¯s and Gender Studies Laura C. Harris Symposium, the Philosophy Program, and the Center for Black Studies hosted a lecture by Dr. Paul C. Taylor on ¡°(Black) Reconstruction in Aesthetics: Philosophy, Black Panther, and the New Nadir.¡± Dr. Taylor, professor of Philosophy and African American Studies at Vanderbilt, explored the centrality of reconstructionist politics to the Black aesthetic tradition. Dr. Taylor used the framework of reconstructionist politics to discuss the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia as well as the New Negro Movement of the early 1900s. Dr. Taylor¡¯s talk was a model of what interdisciplinarity can be as he made meaningful connections from the fields of history, Black aesthetics, popular culture, and philosophy. He then talked through an example of how this interdisciplinary framework can help us examine the meaning and significance of the film: Black Panther as a vehicle for understanding political events of today.

Dr. Taylor received a bachelor¡¯s degree in philosophy from Morehouse ±Ø²©ÓéÀÖ,±È²©ÓéÀÖÍøÖ· and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers University. He is currently the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, Race: A Philosophical Introduction, and The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Race. His book Black is Beautiful was awarded the 2017 monograph prize from the American Society for Aesthetics.