The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black (2026) develops the foundations of what Sawyer calls Black Event Theory and Being-as-Black through engagements with figures including W.E.B. Du Bois and Toni Morrison and with literature, music, visual art, and other forms of Black aesthetic production. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Michael E. Sawyer is Professor of African American Literature and Culture in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he serves as Director of Graduate Studies and Director of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies. He is also a faculty affiliate in Africana Studies. Sawyer is the author of An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis, Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X, Sir Lewis, and The Door of No Return: Being-as-Black. His interdisciplinary work moves among Black Studies, philosophy, political theory, literature, aesthetics, and cultural studies, with particular attention to Black being, temporality, revolution, and the world-making capacities of Black cultural production. Sawyer is also an artist in residence at ONX Studios and co-editor of the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. in Africana Studies and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University, an M.A. from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. from the United States Naval Academy.