Conversations in Atlantic Theory • Nick Bromell on The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass

'Nick Bromell, Professor Emeritus in the English Department at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass. joins Conversations in Atlantic Theory. Bromell is the author of numerous articles on 19th and 20th century literature and politics, and has edited the Norton Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass’ My Bondage and My Freedom, as well as a collection of essays under the title The Political Companion to W.E.B. Du Bois (University of Kentucky Press, 2018). He is the author of four books, and a new book, the occasion for our conversation, The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass (Duke University Press, 2021). In The Powers of Dignity, Bromell centers on the notion of dignity and its cognates in Douglass’ work and, by way of that focus, develops a broad, comprehensive picture of a political philosophy rooted in what Douglass calls “the slave experience.” In our discussion here , we explore themes of race, racism, Republicanism, liberalism, and the complexities of imagining Black liberation in the 19th century up through the 21st century.'