On Being Human as Praxis, 2008-2014

Please Note:

This collection is currently undergoing processing. The Academia series, Events and Engagement series, and Research Materials series are unavailable until approximately June 2026.

Scope and content:

This subseries includes materials related to the book Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, edited by Katherine McKittrick and published in 2015 by Duke University Press. Wynter and McKittrick collaborated on a portion of the book called "Unparalleled Catastrophe for Our Species? Or, to Give Humanness a Different Future: Conversations". The majority of this subseries consists of drafts of this work. It includes handwritten drafts, marked and unmarked typescript drafts, research materials, and notes.

This work was iterative, with Wynter and McKittrick making edits to a draft and returning it to the other for further work; some files indicate that a particular draft might be "Katherine's version" or similar. Wynter also had multiple assistants who worked with her by typing, transcribing, editing, revising, and compiling drafts of her part of this work, and original folders often referred to "Jack's version", "Johanna's version", or similar to indicate which assistant had worked on that draft. These notations have been retained when present. Many drafts printed from a document program also include tracked changes in the margins.

As the writing of this work happened over several years and was conversational, the topics covered vary between drafts, but include philosophy of human nature and the evolution of humans, in particular the significance of the discovery of the Blombos Cave in Africa and its impacts on understanding of early human development; the transition in Europe and elsewhere from geocentrism to heliocentrism and beyond; economic development and conceptions of race and human identity; the legacy of slavery; the conception of self; and many other subjects.

The subseries also includes correspondence, notes, and materials related to the publication process. Because Wynter worked on this project concurrently with other works documented in the Ceremony Found and WMLTSDT subseries, there is considerable overlap with those materials.

A timeline of Wynter's writings, lectures, workshops, and other engagements compiled during processing is available here.

Processing information:

Many of these folders include notes in the form of sticky notes and notepads, folded 8.5"x11" sheets (often several together), and loose portions of cut 8.5"x11" paper. Many of these types of notes were held together with paperclips, and were often nested within other groups of notes held with paperclips. While original order and groupings were maintained wherever possible, many paperclips were removed and many small pieces of paper were not held together at all and/or had no apparent order. Researchers must use extra caution when reviewing these materials to ensure materials remain together.

Sticky notes on original folders were removed, attached to archival paper, and included in the folder. If any information other than just the title of the work was written on the original folder, that portion of the folder was retained and included in the new folder.

Original folders were often unmarked, and the likely work was inferred from content or format. Sometimes handwritten or typescript drafts are written on reverse pages from the same or other works, and processors made judgements about which work to use for the title. Handwritten materials were often undated, and some dates were inferred from surrounding materials.

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