A central criticism emerging from Black and Creole thinkers is that mainstream, white dominated, culture, consumes sounds and images of Creole and Black people in music, theater, and the white press, while ignoring critiques of the white consumption of black culture. Ironically, critiques of whiteness are found not only in black literature and media, but also within the blues, jazz, and spirituals that whites listened to, loved, collected, and archived. This book argues that whiteness is not only a visual orientation; it is a way of hearing. Inspired by formulations of the race and whiteness in the existential writings of Frantz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Lewis Gordon, Angela Davis, bell hooks and Sara Ahmed, T Storm Heter introduces the notion of the white sonic gaze. Through case studies and musical examples from the history of American jazz, the book builds a phenomenological archive to demonstrate the bad habits of 'white listening', drawing from black journalism, the autobiographies of Creole musicians, and the lyrics and sonic content of early jazz music emerging from New Orleans. Studying white listening orientations on the plantation, in vaudeville minstrel shows, and in cabarets, the book portrays six types of bad faith white listeners, including the white minstrel listener, the white savior listener, white hipster listener, and the white colorblind listener. Connecting critical race studies, music studies, philosophy of race and existentialism, this book is for students to learn how to critique the phenomenology of whiteness and practice decolonial listening.

A central criticism emerging from Black and Creole thinkers is that mainstream, white dominated, culture, consumes sounds and images of Creole and Black people in music, theater, and the white press, while ignoring critiques of the white consumption of black culture. Ironically, critiques of whiteness are found not only in black literature and media, but also within the blues, jazz, and spirituals that whites listened to, loved, collected, and archived. This book argues that whiteness is not only a visual orientation; it is a way of hearing. Inspired by formulations of the race and whiteness in the existential writings of Frantz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Lewis Gordon, Angela Davis, bell hooks and Sara Ahmed, T Storm Heter introduces the notion of the white sonic gaze. Through case studies and musical examples from the history of American jazz, the book builds a phenomenological archive to demonstrate the bad habits of 'white listening', drawing from black journalism, the autobiographies of Creole musicians, and the lyrics and sonic content of early jazz music emerging from New Orleans. Studying white listening orientations on the plantation, in vaudeville minstrel shows, and in cabarets, the book portrays six types of bad faith white listeners, including the white minstrel listener, the white savior listener, white hipster listener, and the white colorblind listener. Connecting critical race studies, music studies, philosophy of race and existentialism, this book is for students to learn how to critique the phenomenology of whiteness and practice decolonial listening.

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most distinctive and vociferous social critics of the twentieth century. As editor of the French post-war journal Les Temps Modernes, Sartre was able to complement his literary and philosophical views with essays devoted to practical ethical and political issues. The post-war era was one of the most fruitful, exciting and daring periods for Sartre's thinking.
His published and unpublished works disclose a striking feature of Sartrean existentialism. The commonly-held view is that existentialism champions radical individualism and disparages community, social roles and civic participation. This book challenges this received wisdom, showing that Sartrean existentialism is in fact a deeply social philosophy. T. Storm Heter demonstrates the vitality of Sartre's landmark essays 'What is Literature?' and 'Anti-Semite and Jew', and reveals the importance of the 'Notebooks for an Ethics', a rich and often ignored manuscript containing Sartre's most extensive discussion of ethical and political concepts.
Drawing on these sources, Heter argues that Sartrean authenticity is an ethically and politically important virtue. Contrary to popular belief, the virtue of authenticity is not a mere codeword for sincerity and personal acceptance. Authenticity requires interpersonal recognition and group participation. We cannot be authentic in a vacuum, for the very dynamic of authenticity requires that others recognize our authentic identities.
This book not only defends Sartrean ethics against charges of formalism, emptiness and extreme subjectivism, but also shows that authenticity is an important civic virtue, relevant to the social and political institutions of the modern world.