The Art of Anti-Racism: Aesthetics, Race, and Contemporary Political Theory (SUNY series in Critical Political Science) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798855804614

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2026

Synopsis

Leading scholars grounded in a range of disciplines examine the intersection of anti-racist activism, aesthetics, and contemporary political theory.

The Art of Anti-Racism offers a sustained theoretical examination of the aesthetic dimensions of anti-racist struggle. It argues that political theory itself can be understood as an art―a dynamic process of claim-making and critically analyzing and expanding our ethical, moral and strategic visions. Politics, likewise, is the art of assembling messages, narratives, symbols, emotions, and affects in public and through collective institutions and structures. Art, in turn, can serve as a critique of existing political realities while gesturing toward a horizon beyond, reimagining the boundaries of the politically possible. Through its expressive capacity, art dramatizes subjectivity, experience, and aspirations, embodying the contestation that is central to democratic politics. Given these intersections, contemporary political theory offers invaluable resources for engaging with the aesthetics of anti-racist political thought, practice, and culture. The contributors to this volume explore the following questions: How might various accounts of power and resistance be brought to bear on evaluating the often-unquantifiable political effects of creative anti-racist interventions? What insights can political theory provide to strengthen ties between anti-racist art and broader movement aims? How might art itself be reimagined and reconstructed to align with anti-racist praxis?

About this title

About the Authors

Alix L. Olson is Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality at Emory University (Oxford College) as well as an internationally recognized spoken word artist. Her most recent book is The Ends of Resistance: Making and Unmaking Democracy.

Alex Zamalin is Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is the author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism, which was named a 2020 Choice Outstanding Title by the American Library Association, and coeditor (with Alix L. Olson) of The Art of Anti-Racism: Aesthetics, Race, and Contemporary Political Theory, also published by SUNY Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798855804614
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220
• Editor: Olson Alix L., Zamalin Alex