Additional Positions

Affiliated Faculty, African-American Studies

Education

• D.A.H., Clark Atlanta University
• M. Div. Mercer University, McAfee School of Theology
• A. B. Morehouse College

Areas of Research

• African American Philosophy
• African American Philosophy of Religion 
• Critical Theory
• Neo-Platonism 
• Philosophy of Religion
• Political Philosophy

Anthony Sean Neal, a Beverly B. and Gordon W. Gulmon Humanities Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at Mississippi State University, is a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and a Faculty Fellow in the Shackouls Honors College. He also has an affiliation with the department of African American Studies. Dr. Neal holds the prestigious APA Edinburgh Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year. Additionally, he was inducted into the Morehouse College Collegium of Scholars in 2019 and is a Fellow with the American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought. Dr. Neal’s extensive research experience includes a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Warburg Institute of the School for Advanced Studies at the University of London. He holds a doctorate in Humanities from Clark Atlanta University, a master’s degree from Mercer University, and a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College. Dr. Neal, the author of three books, delves into the concept of consciousness in the writings of Howard Thurman and Huey Newton in his first book, Common Ground: A Comparison of the Idea of Consciousness (Africa World Press, 2015). In his second book, Howard Thurman’s Philosophical Mysticism: Love Against Fragmentation (Lexington, 2019), Dr. Neal explores Thurman’s philosophical mysticism and its emphasis on love as a counterpoint to fragmentation. His third book, Philosophy and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze(Lexington, 2022), received critical acclaim from CHOICE Reviews and was nominated for the award in non-fiction from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. Dr. Neal currently holds the position of Chair for the APA Committee on the Status of Blacks in Philosophy, serves as the Editor of APA Studies on Philosophy and the Black Experience, and is the Executive Director of Philosophy Born of Struggle. His current research project focuses on the philosophy of perception and its connection to the Black experience.

Recent Representative Publications

• Neal, Anthony Sean, Journal of Black Theology, “Howard Thurman’s Mystical Logic: Creatively Encountering Oneness,” (Vol. 16:1, 2017)
• Neal, Anthony Sean, Journal of Pan-African Studies. "From the Suppression the Repression: Connecting the Ideological Lineage of W. E. B. Du Bois to Huey P. Newton” (July 2016) p.32-46
• Neal, Anthony, APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience, “Howard Thurman: Philosopher”

Books

• Neal, Anthony Sean, Howard Thurman’s Philosophical Mysticism: Love Against Fragmentation, Jan 2019 (Lexington Press)
• Neal, Anthony Sean, Common Ground: A Comparison of the Ideas of Consciousness in the Writings of Howard W. Thurman and Huey P. Newton, July 2015 (Africa World Press)

Articles

• Philosophy of Religion and the African American Experience: Conversations with my Friends, Neal, Anthony, Journal of Black Theology, (Vol. 17:1, 2018)
• Neal, Anthony (co-author), Tunstall, Dwayne (co-author), The Acorn, “Subjects of Vulnerability,” (Vol. 18:1-2, 2019) p. 51-75