The Claudia Jones Award
The Claudia Jones Award
“A People’s Art is the Genesis of Their Freedom.”
- Claudia Jones, West Indian Gazette (1959)
The Claudia Jones Award is for best paper by a graduate student presented at the previous year’s meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association International Conference. Information on past awardees can be found below.
The Claudia Jones Award for Best Paper presented by a Graduate Student - CPA 2025 Annual Award
“Sylvia Wynter and Bernard Steigler: Critical Encounters of Myth and Memory” by Duncan Cordry
Duncan Cordry is a Ross-Lynn Research Fellow and PhD candidate in philosophy at Purdue University. His research approaches topics in the philosophy of technology through insurrectionist ethics, focusing especially on the relationships between technology, sociogeny, and corporeality. His dissertation engages with the concept of political spirituality to examine how technologies and technological evolution affect social change and social cohesion in a revolutionary context.
According to a member of the Awards Committee:
This paper offered a critical reading of Sylvia Wynter focused on topics and themes often neglected in contemporary Wynter scholarship. Through the unlikely juxtaposition of Wynter and Bernard Steigler, Cordry offered a new perspective on Wynter’s conception of the relationship between cosmogonies and the functioning of symbolic orders. By exploring Steigler’s critical reflections on technology and its relation to capitalism, Cordry raised novel questions about Wynter’s prognosis for achieving a world “after Man,” while also adeptly applying insights from Wynter to identify shortcomings in Steigler’s analytic framework. The paper excellently spoke to issues raised by the other papers on its panels and sparked significant discussion. Indeed, this paper accomplished what may be a singular achievement: in the Q&A, it prompted Paget Henry to spend several minutes discussing Timothy Leary.
The Claudia Jones Award Previous Recipients
2024
Arwa Awan, University of Chicago, “Aimé Césaire’s ‘Tropical Marxism’ and the Problem of Alienation”.
Work presented at the CPA 22nd annual conference in Quintana Roo, Mexico, June 2024.
2023
Margaret Goldman, University of California, Irvine, for “Care Beyond the Carceral Education State”.
Work presented at the CPA 21st annual conference online, June 2022.
2016
Li Beilei, Zhejiang University, for “The Big World in ‘Small Places’: James W. Johnson’s Interpretation and Participation in the Reconstruction of African American Folk Culture”.
Work presented at the CPA 13th annual conference in Storrs, Connecticut, June 2016.
2015
Matthew McIlhenny, Independent Scholar, for “Accounting for Information in Data Value Chains and Regaining Finance Trust through Decentralized ledgers”.
Work presented at the CPA 12th annual conference in Riviera Maya, Quintana Roo, Mexico, June 2015.
2014
Kojo Koram, "Can the Subaltern Teach? Towards a New Geo-epistemic for the European Age of Crisis”.
Work presented at the CPA 11th annual conference in St. Louis, Missouri, June 2014.