The Problem(S) of Theory and Theory Production in Africana Studies.

Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon, eds. Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. xiii + 321 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $28.95 (paper), ISBN: 1594511470. At the Second Sex Conference in New York in 1979, Audre Lorde argued "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" (Lorde, 1984, p. 112). By "the master's tools," Lorde was specifically referring to "the fruits" of "racist patriarchy" (pp. 110-111). These are the words that have inspired this collection of essays which engage the notion of theory in Black/Afro-American/African American/Pan-African/Africana Studies. Lewis Gordon, a Temple University professor of religion and philosophy, and Jane Anna Gordon, a lecturer of political science at Temple University, have taken Lorde to task, arguing that the master's tools need not dismantle the master's house. In the introduction to this text, they argue that we follow the master's "lead, transcending rather than dismantling Western ideas through building our own houses of thought" (Gordon & Gordon, 2006, p. ix), and through the building of our own houses, we will then displace the "hegemony of the master's house" (p. ix). Thus the editors have compiled eight chapters which attempt to take up this task.