Module description
This module addresses the place of race and racism in ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ political theory (to the extent that these should even be considered separate entities). Historically, ‘Western’ political theory was far from silent about questions of race: for example, Locke, Hume, Jefferson, Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Rawls all make controversial comments about race or fail to address key issues about race. Some make apparently universalistic claims about all humans being equal or perfectible at the same time as denigrating certain ethnic groups or even supporting slavery. Yet academics have mostly overlooked these tensions, as if political theory can necessarily be detached from questions of race.
We should ask, though, whether these ideas are as detachable as many think. Failing to address such questions runs the risk of sanitising Western political theory. We must even reflect on the possibility that some authors’ political theories depend on racism, and the possibility that failing to address these issues subtly reproduces or actively shapes racism.
Yet at the same time, ‘non-Western’ thinkers have been addressing questions of race and racism in important ways, while sometimes also voicing racist views of their own. Remarkably, ‘Western’ analyses of race and racism in political theory tend to ignore non-Western perspectives. The second half of the module will focus more sharply on critiques of race and racism in political theory from a range of non-western or marginalized thinkers.
This module will thus foster a conversation between a variety of different Western and non-Western thinkers in order to ask such questions as how important ideas of race are or should be in political theory, how certain ideas of race came to dominate in certain contexts, how explicit or implicit racism is in certain thinkers and ideologies, whether we should consider key thinkers to be racist or whether those ideas can be separated from their other political arguments, and what it means when such questions are overlooked.
Please note that you will find this module easier if you have studied some political theory at university, especially at level 5 or 6. If you are not sure, see how easily you understand the suggested preparatory reading below.
Assessment details
2,500-word essay (50%) & 2,500-word essay (50%)
Educational aims & objectives
This course is designed to help students:
- compare, contrast and assess different ideas of and about race and racism in political theory;
- critically assess the implications of what is said and not said about race and racism by political theorists;
- reflect on our place in the knowledge-production process.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, students will be able to:
- apply different ideas of race and racism to political ideas and texts;
- uncover, analyse and evaluate empirical and normative assumptions about race in political texts;
- critically assess the importance of authors’ ideas about race to their other political arguments;
- address whether, and to what extent, ideas about race and racism can be separated from other aspects of political theory
- explain what it means when these ideas are systematically excluded from study.
Teaching pattern
PROVISIONAL LIST OF TOPICS
Part 1: Race and racism in ‘Western’ political theory (Dr Adrian Blau)
Topic 1: Foundations of Western racist theory I: Kant, race and racist political theory
Topic 2: Foundations of Western racist theory II: Locke, Hume, Jefferson and racism
Topic 3: Freedom and domination, individual and societal: Frederick Douglass
Topic 4: Critical race theory I: Rawls, Mills and the racial contract
Topic 5: Critical race theory II: beyond racist Western political theory?
Part 2: Race and racism in ‘non-Western’ political theory (Dr Humeira Iqtidar)
Topic 6: ‘Non-western’ perspectives, orientalism and race
Topic 7: Colonialism and Race: Fanon
Topic 8: Race or Caste? Ambedkar and Gandhi
Topic 9: Race and Gender: bell hooks
Topic 10: Western and non-Western political theory in tension and conversation
Suggested reading list
Suggested reading (optional)
Not sure if you want to take this module? Or want to do some preparatory reading? Here are some references:
Robert Bernasconi, ‘Will the real Kant please stand up’, Radical Philosophy 117 (2003). A short and bitingly critical account of Kant’s racism, whether Kant’s racism can be excused because he was ‘just a man of his time’, why Kant’s racism can’t be separated from his political theory, and what it means when most philosophers ignore this. Online here:
https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/will-the-real-kant-please-stand-up
Charles Mills, The Racial Contract (1997) is a readable and fairly short book, which attacks mainstream political theory for its inattention to race.
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950), a searing criticism of colonialism and racism, tying the two together in important ways. The sharp articulation of the harm of colonialism and racism for the colonizers/racists as well as those oppressed is an important element of Césaire ‘s argument.
For more detail, see Naomi Zack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race (2017), which has excellent coverage. Access through KCL library.