Until Our Lungs Give Out

The title of Yancy’s new collection of interviews tells it all: he gives voice to the top critical thinkers in today’s struggle against racism and sexism, thinkers who persist in their struggle to the end, until their lungs give out. Without obfuscating their differences, the book makes it palpable how this very diversity of approaches strengthens the common struggle. I’ve never seen a volume which combines multiple perspectives with a united strong commitment to emancipation. Until Our Lungs Give Out gives hope, and hope is what we need in our dark times.

-- Slavoj Žižek, author of Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed and Heaven in Disorder

These stimulating and wide-ranging engagements—from Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, to Robin Kelley, Mari Matsuda, and Cornel West—remind us of the range and depth of philosophical knowledge that underscores George Yancy’s work as a public intellectual as well as a scholar. This collection of conversations is a must-read for those of us seeking deeper understandings of the complex interactions of race, class, gender, and justice.

-- Henry Louis Gates Jr, the Alphonse Fletcher Unviersity Professor, Harvard University

Many thanks to philosopher and public intellectual George Yancy for this bounty of engaged thought from our foremost thinkers. We need this gift now more than ever—as a source of both perception and hope.

-- Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People

Until Our Lungs Give Out is a timely and tremendously important book. It presents thoughtful and thought-provoking conversations between distinguished philosopher George Yancy and a dazzling array of the world’s most profound, original, and generative thinkers about anti-Black racism in the U.S. and around the world.

-- George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Refusing to adjust to injustice, George Yancy’s interlocutors speak with passion and urgency attesting to Yancy’s skill as an interviewer. Listen to what they have to say, for the insights they express speak to some of the gravest issues of our times.

-- Robert Gooding-Williams, professor of philosophy and African American studies, Columbia Univer