Colour intensities: logics of race and resistance in Jamaica

Wright, Colin

Abstract

This article evaluates the gains but also the losses of the set-theoretical ontology Badiou develops in Being and Event, in order to stress the importance of the shift to a concern with appearance and difference in Logics of Worlds. It is argued that this shift suggests a possible rapprochement between Badiou’s philosophy of the event on the one hand and postcolonial critical race theory on the other. This is explored through an evental reading of the so-called ‘Morant Bay Revolt’ that took place in Jamaica in 1865. The article closes by exploring some of the overlaps between Badiou’s development of an ‘objective phenomenology’ in Logics of Worlds, and Frantz Fanon’s elaboration of a phenomenology of race in Black Skin, White Masks.

Citation

Wright, C. (2019). Colour intensities: logics of race and resistance in Jamaica. Philosophy Today, 62(4), 18-45

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 19, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Mar 5, 2019
• Publication Date: Mar 5, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jan 2, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 8, 2019
• Journal: Philosophy Today
• Print ISSN: 0031-8256
• Electronic ISSN: 2329-8596
• Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 18-45
• Keywords: Alain Badiou, Jamaica, Postcolonial theory, Critical race studies, Frantz Fanon
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1440025
• Publisher URL: https://www.pdcnet.org/philtoday/content/philtoday_2019_0999_2_15_245
• Related Public URLs: https://www.pdcnet.org/philtoday/Philosophy-Today