This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in Brazil. On the... more This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in Brazil. On the one hand, we find the so-called myth of racial democracy presented as the dominant racial ideology in Brazil, obscuring enduring racial inequality and thwarting the development of a mass-movement for racial justice. On the other hand, we find periodic announcements that the myth of racial democracy has definitively died. Accordingly, I theorize the myth of racial democracy as a paradoxically undead myth and ask what it is about the form of this peculiar myth that allows it to survive its own repeated death. Drawing on Roland Barthes' theory of myth, I show how the celebration of racial mixture, or mestiçagem, functions as a mythological signifier of racial democracy that operates beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, activating powerful affects and desires even in those who ostensibly know better.
This article juxtaposes two very different authors from very different locations: George Winston,... more This article juxtaposes two very different authors from very different locations: George Winston, a largely forgotten Southern college president during the Jim Crow era in the United States, and Gilberto Freyre, arguably Brazil’s most famous social theorist. Both men offered emblematic accounts of uncontrollable masculine sexuality that helped to consolidate particular visions of their respective nations in an uncertain post-emancipation moment. Winston denounced post-Reconstruction black male sexuality as bestial and rapacious and a threat to white women in a characteristic statement of the myth of the black male rapist, while Freyre depicted the Portuguese settlers of Brazil as wildly lascivious and particularly drawn to black and indigenous women. Each depiction of unbridled masculine sexuality serves to justify distinct regimes of racial, gender, and class hierarchy. Ultimately, I show that juxtaposition of thinkers from different hemispheric locations, as recommended by Juliet Hooker, helps to rejuvenate and deparochialize intersectional feminist theory.
A "critical exchange" in Contemporary Political Theory on Jane Gordon's book _Creolizing Politica... more A "critical exchange" in Contemporary Political Theory on Jane Gordon's book _Creolizing Political Theory: Reading Rousseau through Fanon_.
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill famously excluded children and so-called barbarians from his othe... more In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill famously excluded children and so-called barbarians from his otherwise broad grant of liberty to human beings. While many scholars have analyzed and criticized the barbarian exclusion, little attention has been focused on the denial of liberty to children. This article argues that Mill's theory of liberty rests on an untenable dividing line between childhood dependence and adult autonomy. The processes of discipline and socialization to which children are subject render them incapable as adults of achieving the kind of autonomy that Mill prescribes. Using relational autonomy as an alternative to Mill's model of autonomy, I propose that we should neither flatly deny liberty to children nor present absolute independence as a normative ideal for adults.
This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in Brazil. On the... more This article addresses a recurrent tension in the literature on race and racism in Brazil. On the one hand, we find the so-called myth of racial democracy presented as the dominant racial ideology in Brazil, obscuring enduring racial inequality and thwarting the development of a mass-movement for racial justice. On the other hand, we find periodic announcements that the myth of racial democracy has definitively died. Accordingly, I theorize the myth of racial democracy as a paradoxically undead myth and ask what it is about the form of this peculiar myth that allows it to survive its own repeated death. Drawing on Roland Barthes' theory of myth, I show how the celebration of racial mixture, or mestiçagem, functions as a mythological signifier of racial democracy that operates beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, activating powerful affects and desires even in those who ostensibly know better.
This article juxtaposes two very different authors from very different locations: George Winston,... more This article juxtaposes two very different authors from very different locations: George Winston, a largely forgotten Southern college president during the Jim Crow era in the United States, and Gilberto Freyre, arguably Brazil’s most famous social theorist. Both men offered emblematic accounts of uncontrollable masculine sexuality that helped to consolidate particular visions of their respective nations in an uncertain post-emancipation moment. Winston denounced post-Reconstruction black male sexuality as bestial and rapacious and a threat to white women in a characteristic statement of the myth of the black male rapist, while Freyre depicted the Portuguese settlers of Brazil as wildly lascivious and particularly drawn to black and indigenous women. Each depiction of unbridled masculine sexuality serves to justify distinct regimes of racial, gender, and class hierarchy. Ultimately, I show that juxtaposition of thinkers from different hemispheric locations, as recommended by Juliet Hooker, helps to rejuvenate and deparochialize intersectional feminist theory.
A "critical exchange" in Contemporary Political Theory on Jane Gordon's book _Creolizing Politica... more A "critical exchange" in Contemporary Political Theory on Jane Gordon's book _Creolizing Political Theory: Reading Rousseau through Fanon_.
In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill famously excluded children and so-called barbarians from his othe... more In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill famously excluded children and so-called barbarians from his otherwise broad grant of liberty to human beings. While many scholars have analyzed and criticized the barbarian exclusion, little attention has been focused on the denial of liberty to children. This article argues that Mill's theory of liberty rests on an untenable dividing line between childhood dependence and adult autonomy. The processes of discipline and socialization to which children are subject render them incapable as adults of achieving the kind of autonomy that Mill prescribes. Using relational autonomy as an alternative to Mill's model of autonomy, I propose that we should neither flatly deny liberty to children nor present absolute independence as a normative ideal for adults.
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