NDPR William Paris Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation

0 views

Skip to first unread message

ndpr...@nd.edu

unread,

Oct 8, 2025, 6:23:39 PMOct 8

to philosophical...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2025.10.4 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

William Paris, Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation, Oxford University Press, 2025, 272 pp., $35.00 (pbk) ISBN9780197698877.

Reviewed by Aaron Berman, The New School

William M. Paris’s first book makes wide-ranging and consequential interventions into contemporary critical theory, Africana philosophy, and critical philosophy of race. By situating careful studies of five key thinkers of black liberation within a synthetic critical framework of his own, Paris is able simultaneously to develop a compelling ‘utopian’ answer to critical theory’s ongoing search for the normative sources of social transformation, offer novel interpretations of his primary interlocutors as contributors to a tradition of utopian critical theory and practice, and illustrate the relevance of the social ontology of time to critical philosophy of race. Utopia can be a tough...