In this interview, Grant Farred, Cornell University professor in the Africana Studies and Research Center, discusses one of his new books, The Perversity of Gratitude: An Apartheid Education.

Professor Farred grew up, disenfranchised, under apartheid. In his book, Professor Farred almost counterintuitively — and certainly contrary to all conventional political wisdom about life under apartheid in South Africa — argues that it was both because of and despite his inferior education that he was made to think. The Perversity of Gratitude is organized around four of Professor Farred's most influential teachers, interspersed with definitions of concepts and interludes in which he addresses directly some of the philosophies that have left their mark on him.
  • How apartheid can counterintuitively compel the disenfranchised into thinking and imagining
  • How teachers, both individually and collectively, can shape a student's life — often in ways entirely unexpected

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