Towards a phenomenology of racial embodiment

When one realizes the indeterminacy of racial categories, their fluid borders and cultural variety, it is often tempting to adopt a nominalism about race: that race is no more real than phlogiston or witchcraft. In this essay, I resist this conclusion primarily on phenomenological grounds. Race is real, certainly more real than phlogiston, though like […]

Empire and I: Terra Incognita, Pitshanger Manor and Gallery, London, 22 January–13 March 1999

Exhibition review Empire and ITerra Incognita, Pitshanger Manor and Gallery, London, 22 January–13 March 1999Empire and I is an exhibition of nine visual artists, who, in the words of its press release, ʻhave been commissioned to respond to the impact of colonial thought and history on contemporary ideas of “race” and nation.ʼ Situated in Pitshanger […]

Hegel’s racism?: A response to Bernasconi

Robert Bernasconi’s article in RP 117 has harsh and important things to say about some philosophical heroes of the Enlightenment, especially Kant, and it deserves serious critical attention. [1] This response is not directly concerned with the central claims of the article but with a marginal, though still significant, aspect: its treatment of Hegel. It […]

Surplus consciousness: Houellebecq’s novels of ideas

Surplus consciousness Houellebecq’s novels of ideas Martin ryle Michel Houellebecqʼs fiction is said to be selling better outside France than that of any French novelist since Camus. Atomised (1999) and Platform (2001), his two more recent novels, appeared in English within a year of their publication. [1] The comparison some reviews have drawn with Camus […]