The Trouble with Unity

Very excited that the long-awaited Spring 2014 issue of the Du Bois Review, titled "Race in a 'Postracial' Epoch," is out; editors Robert Gooding-Williams and Charles W. Mills have compiled a terrific collection of new articles by Paul C. Taylor, Lawrie Balfour, Tommie Shelby, Kathryn T. Gines, Derrick Darby and Argun Saatcioglu, Sally Haslanger, and Rory A. Kramer and Camille Z. Charles. My article "Racial Presence versus Racial Justice: The Affective Power of an Aesthetic Condition" lays out some of my current thinking on theory, race, and aesthetics: "While acknowledging that the presence of representatives from historically marginalized groups is a crucial component of justice, this essay argues for a new understanding of racial presence—not as proof that racial justice has been achieved but as an aesthetically meaningful aspect of democratic politics characterized by multiplicitous interpretations and outcomes."