By Hassanaly Ladha
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Date: 12/26/2019
Description:
Through a radical reading of Hegel’s oeuvre, The Architecture of Freedom sets forth a theory of open borders centered on a new interpretation of the German philosopher’s related conceptions of language and the aesthetic, mastery and servitude, and subjectivity and the state. The book’s argument turns on Hegel’s identification of “Africa” as a fluid, utopic space enabling the traversal of the East-West binary. As Hegel’s figure for the non-historical, Africa emerges as the negativity that propels the movement of the dialectic in time. Examining the syncretic figures of the Memnon and slave across Hegel’s lecture courses, the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Encyclopedia, and the Philosophy of Right, the book calls for a reassessment of Hegelian philosophemes across disciplines in the humanities. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in philosophy, postcolonial and African studies, political theory, architecture, and historiography.