Toward the Construction of a Theory of Political Action

Teodros Kiros

Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN)

Through a rare autobiographical act, Zara Yacob, who acquainted himself with the teachings of the Catholic Church introduced by Portuguese Jesuit missions in Sixteenth-century Ethiopia, becomes the first self-conscious founder of a philosophical tradition in Ethiopia. Indeed, it is a mild exaggeration to assert that it is Zara Yacob who gave the continent of Africa an original autobiography, something that was at that time confined to literate traditions outside of Africa. His treatise is a masterful example of self-presentation, clearly and powerfully expressed in a captivating literary style.

Zara Yacob: Rationality of the Human Heart

The Red Sea Press, Inc.

Ethiopian Discourse is a text which makes heroic efforts to engage the Ethiopian reader with the problems, challenges and traditions of classical and modern Ethiopia. For the past fifteen years, the author took on Ethiopian topics as they unfolded in real time and commented on them, challenging the policies of the existing regime. Some of the essays marveled at the idea of revolutionary democracy, when it was freshly introduced to Ethiopian thinking. Like many Ethiopians, the author was profoundly impressed by the promises of the regime in power. Hope fueled his imagination, and he wrote about revolutionary democracy admiringly. However, no condition is permanent. When the ruling regime began changing, his writings also changed. They become bitter, disappointed and marred by hopelessness. The essays of the new period reflect this mood. Teodros Kiros is an eloquent tribune for radical democracy. He presents often complex ideas in a style that is not only accessible but warmly engaging. He seamlessly blends attention to particular issues with reflection on matters of universal import. In these ways he directly embodies the radical democratic practice that he advocates. Victor Wallis, Professor, Liberal Arts, Berklee College of Music The many years of painstaking writings of Teodros Kiros are vindicated by the compilation of series of articles into a solid book lucidly and cogently presented to the reader. Dr. Teodros successfully blends philosophy and politics in Ethiopian Discourse, and since he is a superb intellectual and scholar, he presents an illuminating analysis of themes ranging from tolerance and democracy to national reconciliation to politics as the art of compromise to the new political culture and to a democratic citizen . The book is a powerful medium, in that it propagates a myriad of ideas, constructs a rational analysis, delineates the foundations of a new Ethiopian political culture, and advocates a forward moving of cultural evolution. Ghelawdewos Araia, Ph.D. African &amp; African-American Studies Lehman College, City University of New York The essays that fill the pages of Ethiopian Discourse are brilliant exercises in moral and democratic critique. They are powerful challenges to persistent inequalities between human beings and also of the the non-democratic nature of the political regimes that continue to govern Ethiopia in the modern period. The moral imagination soars to great heights in these writings by Prof. Kiros. Paget Henry Professor, Sociology &amp; Africana Studies, Brown University

Ethiopian Discourse

Red Sea Press,U.S.

Philosophical Essays seeks to present the idea of democracy systematically beginning with the ancient philosophers and ending with the modern philosopher, John Rawls. Democracy as we have come to know it is associated with the Greek Philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. The accepted view is that the idea of democracy originated with the Greeks and that democracy is exclusively European. Although this is largely true, there is a sense in which it is misleading, which needs to be corrected by further analytic distinctions. The author proposes that democracy is both a formal idea and a lived idea. As a formal idea, it is true that Plato and Aristotle presented it to the world systematically by writing about it and by subjecting it to a rigorous conceptual analysis; as a lived idea the ancient Egyptians and Asians and following them other African states lived it, as the activity of the people arriving at ideas, deciding matters, taking positions and justifying them through deliberation and participation, two cardinal features of the democracy idea. The essays in this book were written with the purpose of diffusing the democracy idea to a large audience in a lucid, intelligible and clear language that would appeal to an English reading audience. The essays were first written for an Ethiopian audience, most particularly university students who may not have the means to purchase the classical texts, which fortunately are available to Western students. The typical Ethiopian student is not so fortunate. In writing to his Ethiopian sisters and brothers with the call to critical reflection on democratic participation and justice through drawing upon their creative resources and reflective judgment, Kiros is engaging in that radical reflective spirit of universalizing praxis. In this sense, in all his homes-in Ethiopian and North American thought-he exemplifies the value of fearless speech, and in so doing, speaks to us all. Lewis R. Gordon Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy, Temple University and author An Introduction to Africana Philosophy and co-author of Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in the Modern Age In Philosophical Essays, Dr. Teodros Kiros once again offers us his elegant analysis and critique of the major philosophers from Plato to John Rawls. By elucidating the philosophical underpinnings of the giant philosophers and systematically dissecting the themes in comparative perspective, the author invites the reader to explore the many facets of philosophical discourses. Whoever reads this book will initially encounter multiple refractions of philosophical essays, but s/he will soon realize that a convenient simplification undergirds the seemingly complex nature of the book. Although the book thoroughly examines the ideas of the philosophers, the dominant framework of thinking manifested in such titles as participatory democracy and passion for justice and freedom are entirely original. Freedom, creativity, and democracy are central to Philosophical Essays and Teodros Kiros indeed fervently believes that freedom is the most valuable principle of justice and based on the Kantian notion of intelligence , he argues, quite convincingly, that a good constitution can mobilize this intelligence, in service of humanity and produce a good moral condition of citizens. Ghelawdewos Araia, Ph.D. African & African American Studies, Lehman College, City University of New York

Philosophical Essays

"The stories of Teodros Kiros hover on the edge of personal and political agendas. His characters are bound by tradition that they do not accept, trapped between the desire to leave beautiful, parched Ethiopia for a cultivated life in Europe or the United States and the need to deliver their native country from its poverty and political stasis. Despite their love for their country and their people, their dilemma is not easily resolved, so they must live with contradiction, hoping for a solution." Douglas Kohn, Professor of English, Berklee College of Music Hirut and Hailu and Other Short Stories, an intriguing first collection by Teodros Kiros set in both Addis Ababa and Boston, is a series of intimate portraits of human beings searching for their heart s desire in often desperate circumstances. The first part of the collection follows the relationship of Hirut and Hailu, two sensitive young people in love against the backdrop of political and economic turmoil in modern-day Ethiopia. Subsequent stories explore tragedy and loss on many levels from the injustice committed upon a poor laborer selling figs to the more intimate and fleeting realization of moral failure by a college professor unable to help a stranger in need. With honesty, intelligence, lyricism, and a loving concern for his characters, the author reveals to us much that we need to know about the sadness of the current situation in Ethiopia and also about the tragedy that is inherent in all of human life. Julie Rold, Professor of English, Berklee College of Music Like no other contemporary author, Teodros Kiros brings alive the reality of Ethiopia today. From university educated young women who need to sell themselves in discos in order to feed their families, to talented young doctors offered a future in Copenhagen or Boston but with hearts still linked to home, to impoverished gatherers of wild figs tormented by bourgeois schoolboys, to brutal jailers and lonely aging parents, Kiros paints with skill and grace and precision a world undergoing a rapid transition, but still singing the songs of ancient tradition. A remarkable new voice. David Gullette, author of Dreaming Nicaragua Teodros Kiros here offers in Hirut and Hailu and Other Short Stories poignant portrait of love as an effort to pierce through the fog of attrition, cruelty, discontent, and injustice characteristic of a world antipathetic to the struggle for human dignity. Through at first the lives of lovers from different worlds of class Kiros unveils the unyielding power of the heart, the poetic resistance of the spirit, and the tragic potential of the contingent. From Addis Adaba, Ethiopia to Copenhagen, Denmark to Cambridge, MA, in the US, the opening novella s global narrative, followed by tales of death and resistance, brings to the fore the underside of contemporary life in which the affluent and the poor are expected to forget their symbiotic links and pass each other by with at most a glance. What, this story of love, ethics, and the ineluctability of politics asks, would happen if all were to pause for a moment and really look at each other? The world, no doubt, waiting beneath, yet all around, might, just might, appear. Lewis R. Gordon, author of Existentia Africana and Professor of Philosophy, African American Studies, and Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut at Storrs

Hirut and Hailu and Other Short Stories

Cambridge Days is a unique literary work that systematically combines the genres of drama and story-telling. In this book, Professor Teodros Kiros, has assembled a diverse group of actors who love to make connections with areas of knowledge and the subtle nuances of life, sometimes exhibiting a self-negating condition of paradox and at other times, joy, rapture, and elation of group dynamics. The chief characters in the book are Neil, Heidi, Adowa, Elias, Rosa, Nyerere, Aster, Dodo the nameless monk, Makau, and Conrad. Most of them find themselves in Cambridge, an intrusive city of Juxtapositions as the author aptly describes it. Cambridge is also a city of illusions and a city of knowledge, a venue for all the talented characters in the book. Cambridge Days is a powerful literary work that expresses dialectical process of thought by expanding the range of individual and group experiences, elegantly extrapolated by the actors themselves. --Ghelawdewos Araia, Lehman College, City University of New York Cambridge Days is an ode to philosophy. It is a keenly observed meditation on friendship, and on the nature of beauty, love, life and death. --Chika Unigwe, Director, Awele Creative Trust, Brown University I was incredibly impressed with the beautiful descriptive writing sustained throughout this work. The sensitive, thoughtful, and moving character portraits, and the intelligence and humor of the narrative throughout those many pages was satisfying and daring. The range of personalities portrayed are convincing. Every character seems to be genuine and full-fledged in his/her humanity. The language at its best has an arresting quality and again and again I found myself stopping to admire something originally and wonderfully said. But I was equally compelled to read on and learn more about what was going to happen to this intriguing cast of characters. --Julie Rold, writer, Berklee College Drawing from his experiences as an Ethiopian immigrant who has the good fortune to land in Cambridge, Teodros Kiros weaves narratives of his experiences with such richness that he speaks to the humanity present in all of us. In so doing, he thematizes often overlooked dimensions of life, not only in Cambridge but wherever human beings live and love. -- George Katsiaficas, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Cambridge Days, a novel

Literature & Fiction

"These interviews deftly highlight...the life and thought of Cornel West. Teodros Kiros, one of our leading living philosophers, novelists, television personalities, and commentators on modern African life, brilliantly weaves together a series of dialogues that novices and experts of West's work alike will find invaluable. The questioning of Kiros and responses of West encourage us to meditate on the meaning of A Love Supreme from the heart, which the Ethiopian thinker Zara Yacob maintained is the site of reason. --Neil Roberts, Professor of Political Science, Williams College Cornel West defines himself as "a bluesman in the life of the mind, and a jazzman in the world of ideas." Conversations with Cornel West demonstrates the truth of that self-description as he engages in Socratic dialogue with Teodros Kiros, a scholar who not only understands the importance of rigor, but who possesses a fund of knowledge that is broad in scope and analytic in precision. There is no one-upmanship in this shared critical space. --George Yancy, PhD, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies." --

Conversations with Cornel West

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Africa World+press

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Books by Teodros Kiros