Race, Feminism and Critical Race Theories: What’s Hegel Got to Do with It?

Abstract

Contemporary feminist scholarship has highlighted the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy for feminist theory and politics. Hegel’s reception in the fields of postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, and critical philosophy of race did not encounter a similar fortune. Most of the contributions from these fields, instead, have polemically engaged with Hegel’s works, with the purpose to elucidate the crucial role that his philosophy played in the conceptualization of racial hierarchies and colonial Eurocentrism that underlie the master narrative of Western modernity. After reconstructing Hegel’s discourse on race(s) across his anthropology, philosophy of history and philosophy of right, this chapter draws on contemporary feminist approaches to Hegel with the aim of examining to what extent such feminist readings may help outlining textual and conceptual strategies for addressing the Hegelian corpus so as to make his contribution valuable for contemporary critical philosophies of race and antiracist theories and practices.