By Zakiyyah Iman Jackson 

This is another excellent book challenging what it means to be human. It explores the history of Blackness and animality in the history of Western thought and science. The animalization of Black people by a white supremacist society has been met with “pleas for human recognition,” but Zakiyyah offers another perspective. By drawing on Black diasporic literature, a new understanding of what it means to be human is born.

Zakiyyah draws on expertise in Black feminist studies and animal studies, providing a powerful case for reframing our understanding of humanness. In challenging ideas about being human, Zakiyyah compels us to think about the non-human, and our position in the world.

Title: Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an AntiBlack World

Author: Zakiyyah Iman Jackson

Series: Sexual Cultures (54 books)

Awards: Winner, 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, given by the National Women’s Studies Association

Winner, 2021 Harry Levin Prize, given by the American Comparative Literature Association

Winner, 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies

ISBN: 9781479890040

Publisher: NYU Press

Zakiyyah Iman Jackson is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Feminist Research and the University of Southern California. Her research explores the literary and aesthetic aspects of Western philosophical and scientific discourse and investigates the engagement of African diasporic literature, film, and visual art with the historical concerns, knowledge claims, and rhetoric of Western science and philosophy. 

Abdourahamane Ly, guest curator for Veganuary at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, has been vegan for the past seven years now. He is extremely passionate about animal rights and encouraging more humans, especially Africans, to go vegan. He was born in Guinea in West Africa but spent the last 13 years in China. He is currently in Rwanda spreading the vegan message. You can follow him on Instagram at @fulanivegan and X at @fulanivegan.