Gooding-Williams named the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Philosophy

Robert Gooding-Williams is a major figure in the contemporary philosophy of race and a leading historian of Black modern social and political philosophy.
Robert Gooding-Williams
Robert Gooding-Williams

Robert Gooding-Williams, a major figure in the contemporary philosophy of race and a leading historian of Black modern social and political philosophy, was recently appointed the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Philosophy, effective July 1, 2024.

He is a member of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in the Department of Philosophy.

In his work, Gooding-Williams examines questions related to social and political philosophy, the philosophy of race, the history of African-American political thought, 19th century European philosophy, existentialism, and aesthetics. His writings interpret complex social phenomena and explore the nuanced interplay of race, class, gender, nationality, and other social positions. Drawing on European and American philosophical traditions, he 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.

His book “Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism” (Stanford, 2001) argues that Nietzsche's critique of the modern philosophy of the subject revises Kant’s concept of the dynamical sublime and makes allegorical use of the myth of Theseus, Ariadne, and Dionysus. “Look, A Negro!: Philosophical Essays on Race, Culture, and Politics” (Routledge, 2005) unpacks fundamental questions around race and racism. Inspired by Frantz Fanon’s famous description of the profound effect of being singled out by a white child with the words “Look, a Negro!,” Gooding-Williams’ book is an insightful, rich and wide-ranging work of social criticism. His book “In The Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America” (Harvard 2009) examines the conceptual foundations of Du Bois’ interpretation of Black politics and, in 2010, won the best book on race, ethnicity, and political thought awarded by the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association and an honorable mention citation by the David Easton Award, awarded by the Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political Science Association. Gooding-Williams is also the editor of “Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising” (Routledge, 1993), co-editor (with David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History at Yale) of the Bedford Books edition of “The Souls of Black Folk” (1997), and author of the “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” entry on W.E.B. Du Bois.

Gooding-Williams has been awarded numerous fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Independent Scholars and College Teachers Fellowship, two Andrew Mellon Faculty Fellowships, a Laurance A. Rockefeller Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018. He was also awarded the 2023 Wilbur Cross Medal, which honors alumni of Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for exceptional work in scholarship, public service, teaching, or academic administration.

He was a founding co-editor of the online Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy. Before joining the faculty at Yale, he was M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies; Professor of Philosophy and of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, where he directed the Center for Race, Philosophy, and Social Justice.

Gooding-Williams earned his Ph.D. and B.A. at Yale University.

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