Robert Gooding-Williams

Gooding-Williams is a major figure in contemporary philosophy of race, a leading historian of Afro-modern social and political philosophy, a Du Bois scholar, and a Nietzsche scholar. His writings demonstrate a sophisticated ability to interpret complex social phenomena and to parse the nuanced interplay of race, class, gender, nationality, and other social positions. Drawing on European and American philosophical traditions, Gooding-Williams analyzes inherited racial narratives both to criticize racial injustice and to illuminate the ideological content of racial representations.  His work engages topics of immediate social concern and shows how philosophically literate social criticism can contribute to public debate.