Overview
Grant Farred: PhD (Princeton University, 1997), MA (Columbia University, 1990), BA Honours, Cum laude, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, 1988). He has previously taught in the Program in Literature, Duke University, Williams College and Michigan University. He served as General Editor of the journal South Atlantic Quarterly (SAQ) from 2002 to 2010.
He has published in a range of areas, including theory, postcolonial studies, race, the formation of intellectuals, sport's theory, Cultural Studies and literary studies.
His books: The Perversity of Gratitude: An Apartheid Education (Temple University Press, 2024), The Zelensky Method (Westphalia Press, 2022), “An Essay for Ezra: Racial Terror in America” (University of Minnesota Press, 2021) Entre Nous: Between the World Cup and Me (Duke University Press, Spring 2019), The Burden of Over-representation: Race, Sport & Philosophy (Temple University Press, May 2018), Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest: The Event of the Athletic Body (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), Long Distance Love: A Passion for Football, (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2008), What's My Name? Black Vernacular Intellectuals (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), and Midfielder's Moment: Coloured Literature and Culture in Contemporary South Africa (Westview Press, 1999).
His pamphlets: “Only A Black Athlete Can Save Us Now” (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Martin Heidegger Saved My Life (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), and Phantom Calls: Race and the Globalization of the NBA (Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2006).
His forthcoming book: co-authored with Timothy Campbell: “The Comic Self” (University of Minnesota Press).
His edited volume: "Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures" (Temple University Press, 2022).
His forthcoming audio book: “An Essay for Ezra: Racial Terror in America” (University of Minnesota Press, 2021); audio book (Tantor Media, 2022).
His forthcoming pamphlets: Grievance: In Fragments (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2024); The Prettiest Woman: Nostalgia for Late-Industrial Capitalism (University of Minnesota Press, Fall 2025).
Farred edited Rethinking CLR James (London: Blackwell Publishers, 1996) a collection of essays on the Caribbean intellectual written by major scholars in the field of history, literary criticism and cultural studies. He co-edited Violence In/And the Great Lakes: The Thought of VY Mudimbe and Beyond (Pietermaritzburg: South Africa, University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2013).
He is editor of the series Thinking Theory (University of Minnesota Press).
He has edited journal special issues on post-apartheid South Africa, Frantz Fanon, Stuart Hall, Argentine politics, African philosophy and co-edited two journal issues on James Baldwin, one on Martin Heidegger’s notion of dwelling, and a collection of essays Derrida In/And Africa (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
Languages Spoken
English and Afrikaans
Research Focus
Philosophy, thinking, politics, sport, cultural studies, theory, literature.
Publications
Martin Heidegger Saved My Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2015)
What’s My Name? Black Vernacular Intellectuals. (University of Minnesota Press, 2003)
“The Fourth Spartacus,” Philosophy Today, Volume 62:4, Fall 2018