Toward a Global Idea of Race

How does the arsenal of scientific and social knowledge justifies the murder of Black people? Homo modernus — Toward a Global Idea of Race, translated into Portuguese as Homo modernus — Para uma ideia global de raça, presents a harsh analysis of the political force of race in contemporary society. This book, originally written in English and published in 2007 in the United States, became fundamental to understand Black Brazilian thinker Denise Ferreira da Silva’s — writer, artist and interdisciplinary professor of great international renown — innovative theory about the ethical issues of our global present. In the words of writer and Columba University professor Saidiya Hartman, “Homo modernus — Toward A Global Idea of Race is a brilliant and groundbreaking study of the constitutive role of race in global modernity”, and “one of the great texts of black studies.”

Going back into the history of modern philosophy, from Descartes to Herder, and in dialogue with contemporary women thinkers like bell hooks, Judith Butler, and Kum-Kum Bhavnani, the author challenges the ways used to understand racial subjugation, and reformulates the central figure of ethical reports — the concept of homo modernus, i.e., global/historical consciousness.

As defined by Jorge Vasconcellos, UFF professor and activist-scholar in the 28 de Maio Collective, “the author proposes — through her thinking work and artistic practices —theoretical and sensitive tools that double as weapons of scholarly investigation and libertarian conceptual factories.” Radically confronting our ways of understanding race, Towards a Global Idea of Race, written in poetic and incisive prose, is both powerful scholarly investigation and an experiment in thinking and living the world of today.

About the author
Denise Ferreira da Silva was born in Rio de Janeiro. As a philosopher, writer, and artist, her practice broaches the ethical-political challenges of the globalized present. She's a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, in Vancouver, and an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at Monash University, in Melbourne. Her artistic work includes the movies Serpent Rain (2016), 4 Waters/Deep Implicancy (2018) and Soot Breath/ Corpus Infinitum (2020), in collaboration with Arjuna Neuman. She is the author of essays published in biennales at Liverpool (2017), São Paulo (2016), Veneza (2017) and at documenta 14 (2017). She has exhibited her work, conducted performances, and given talks at institutions such as Centre Pompidou, in Paris, Whitechapel Gallery, in London, Masp, in São Paulo, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in Nova York. Her original take on race in global modernity has been acclaimed by contemporary thinkers such as Fred Moten, Hortense Spillers and Jota Mombaça. She is the author of A dívida impagável (2019), translated into English as Unpayable Debt (2022), among other books.

About the collection
The Encruzilhada collection intends to build a landscape of Brazilian and foreign authors working with contemporary issues such as antiracisms, feminisms and decolonial thoughts. Edited by José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo, a Doctor of Philosophy and professor at ECA/USP, the collection presents authors who think about the present, attempting to shed a light on how certain processes, as they're faced, understood and transformed, can change historical perception.

Specifications
Title Homo modernus — Toward a Global Idea of Race
Author Denise Ferreira da Silva
Editor José Fernando Peixoto de Azevedo
Collection Crossroads Collection
Language Portuguese
Page count 480
ISBN 978-65-5691-085-7
Cover Thiago Lacaz
Format Softcover
Year 2022