Respondent: Vanessa Guaraca Gonzalez

Abstract:

This talk will argue that, far from peripheral issues concerning only civic equality, race and racism are fundamental aspects of current forms of social and economic organization, globally. My contribution is an interpretive framework that understands race as a historical formation, not simply a social construction. I will also argue that cultural racism needs to be brought to the fore as the principal way in which the control of global migration is justified.

Bio:

Linda Martín Alcoff is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of

New York, former President of the American Philosophical Association

and Co-Director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential

Philosophy and was recently inducted into the American Academy of

Arts and Sciences. She has written 5 books, edited 11, and has over 100

articles that address issues in epistemology, feminism, Foucault, race

theory, and Latin American philosophy. Her most recent book is Race

and Racism: A Decolonial Approach (Oxford UP 2025); her next book is

on what she calls “Extractivist Epistemology.” In 2021, she was listed as

the third most influential philosopher by Academic Influence. Alcoff is

originally from Panama, immigrated to the United States as a child, and

lives today happily in Brooklyn. For more info go to www.alcoff.com