Season 4, Episode 3: Ottobah Cugoano's 'Thoughts and Sentiments': Interview with Aminah Hasan-Birdwell

New Voices in the History of Philosophy

In this episode Jacinta speaks with Aminah Hassan-Birdwell, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Emory University, about 18th Century Fante-British abolitionist and philosopher Ottobah Cugoano. We focus on his essay "Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species," discussing its broad-spanning and interconnected critique of slavery, law, labour and colonization. Hassan-Birdwell considers the breadth of Cugoano’s perspective, explaining that he takes not only the suffering of the individual into account, but the health of their society, and looks not merely at British society, but the morality of nations across the globe. Hassan-Birdwell concludes the episode by offering advice to early career scholars commencing research on similarly marginalised philosophers.