Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, academic, activist, author and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. West is a 1973 graduate of Harvard University and received his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He is currently a professor of African American Studies at Princeton and of Religious Philosophy and Christian Studies at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
The bulk of his work focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness." West draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, including the black church, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism.