Kris F. Sealey, "Creolizing the Nation" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
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What is the main focus of Kris F. Sealey’s book *Creolizing the Nation*?
Welcome to the New Books Network.
Hello and welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Sarah Tyson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Denver. And I'm co host of the channel, along with Carrie Fickdoor, Robert Tleis, and Malcolm Keating. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Chris F. Seeley, Professor of Philosophy at the at Fairfield University. Her book, Crealizing the Nation, is just out from Northwestern University Press. Can the concept of the nation be a resource for libertarian political struggle? Are the dangers of nationalism simply too great?
In crealizing the nation, Chris Seely argues that crealization offers theoretical resources for imagining the possibilities of decolonial nations. Such new imaginings are made possible by the ways crealization allows us to think subjectivity, community, and history inventively. Seeley draws our focus to everyday practices of sabotage and jo and jostling as modes of crealization that deserve our attention. She creates conversations between the work of Edward Glisson and Franz Fanon, Gloria Enzildua, Maria Lugonis, and Mariana Ortega, to theorize identity and community in terms of difference, flux, and ambiguity. Sealy gives us errant possibilities. Chris Seeley, welcome to New Books in Philosophy. Thank you so much for having me, Sarah.
It is a pleasure to
be here.
Um well it's great to talk you with with you this morning and I I wanna hear about your background as a theorist and your interests um and how you came to write this book, but We have some late breaking news about an award you you were just honored with. So will you tell us about that? Absolutely. Um and
so, you know, late breaking indeed. I um woke up on the morning of January first, twenty twenty two, um, with this news. Uh so crealizing the nation. was um quite literally just um awarded the uh Nicolas Christopher's uh Julien Batista Philosophical Literature Prize. Um, it's one of the outstanding book awards that the C P A um awards every year. So, um it's an honor that the book is receiving from the Caribbean Philosophical Association and uh I couldn't be more thrilled because um, you know, the C P has been my intellectual community. Um and so many folks in the CPA have invested in me and poured into me as a scholar um and as an academic and Um, it's it's just it's an award that is over and beyond anything that I could have possibly, you know, dreamed of.
So I'm very grateful.
Congratulations. I I I really understand why they gave this book that award. Um, it makes a ton of sense. Yeah. Well Well, so tell us how you came to write this award winning book. Right, I'm still getting I'm still getting
still getting used to that, but yeah, I could get used to that. Um So uh, you know so, you know, as you as you mentioned, um, I'll just kind of say a little bit more about myself and, you know, and and the trajectory from, you know, my beginning until now. Um, so I'm in the philosophy department currently at Sierra Field University, uh, which is in Connecticut. I've been there for about fifteen years. Um and I joined uh Fairfield right after finishing up my graduate work at the University of Memphis. And so at Memphis, um That at Memphis I worked with Robert Bernascone, um, who eventually um ended up sharing my dissertation. Um and so Robert was pretty instrumental in helping me come to what ended up being that dissertation work on Emmanuel Levias and Jean Paul Starcher.
Um So there's that. And then I should also say bef before getting to Memphis, um, I was I was in college um, and you know, coming to Memphis and being in the US in general as an international student, right? So I was born and sort of raised, came to adulthood in Trinidad. Um and and I think that bio biographical bit about me is kind of significant when it comes to how I came to writing this book. Um because a big part of my experience as an international student, right, and especially from a place like Trinidad, was that it sort of took me quite some time to figure out
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of Kris F. Sealey’s book *Creolizing the Nation*?
0:01–9:08
2
How did the book earn the Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Outstanding Book Award?
9:08–18:08
3
How does Sealey’s personal background shape her approach to decolonial theory?
18:08–26:50
4
Why does Sealey critique the traditional concept of the nation as a “metaphysics of the one”?
26:50–36:01
5
What does “creolization” mean for imagining alternative political communities?
36:01–45:04
6
How does Fanon’s analysis of the transistor radio illustrate creolizing politics?
45:04–49:47
7
In what ways does the book connect creolization with Indigenous theories and activism?
49:47–53:58
8
What future research projects does Sealey envision for extending creolizing thought?
53:58–54:24
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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