African-Jewish philosopher Lewis R. Gordon on racial identity

African-Jewish philosopher Lewis R. Gordon, one of the leading scholars of Black Existentialism, joins us live from the US to discuss his ground-breaking look at how racial identity is constructed and experienced through history, art, politics and popular culture.

Described by Judith Butler as ‘a thinker whose reflections on race have produced singular illuminations on our times’, Gordon is head of philosophy at UCONN-Storrs, visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg and honorary president of the Global Center for Advanced Studies. He will be in conversation with Dennis Davis, one of South Africa’s most respected legal minds and appointed as a judge at the High Court of Cape Town by Nelson Mandela.

After first broadcast this stream will be available to watch on demand until Thu 31 Mar.

Lewis R. Gordon is an African-Jewish philosopher, activist and also a musician, who was born on the island of Jamaica and grew up in the Bronx, New York. As Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs in the United States, Gordon is a pioneer in the school of Black existentialist thought and a pre-eminent scholar working to continue the Fanonian legacy within contemporary philosophy.

Judge Dennis Davis is educated at the Universities of Cape Town and Cambridge. One of South Africa’s most respected legal minds, he was appointed to a personal chair of Commercial Law in 1989, in 1998 he became a Judge of the High Court, and the President of the Competition Appeal Court in 2000.