In Conversation: An interview with Prof. Anthony Bogues

The Present in Historical Context

Professor Anthony  Bogues is the Asa Messer Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory and the inaugural director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. He is also a visiting professor and curator at the University of Johannesburg and author or editor of 8 books in the fields of intellectual history, political theory and art including Black Heretics, Black Prophets: Radical Political Intellectuals  and Metamorphosis: The Art of Edouard Duval Carrie.  Also particularly relevant to this conversation is his Empire of Liberty: Power, Desire and Freedom. He has curated exhibitions in the United States, the Caribbean and South Africa. He is currently working on a book, titled Black Critique and editing a volume on Sylvia Wynter’s work with Bedour Algraa.  He is also writing two intellectual biographies, one on CLR James and the other on Sylvia Wynter.  Prof.  Bogues is the   co-convener of two major exhibition projects, one titled Slavery, Colonialism and the Making of the Modern World with the National African American Museum of History and Culture and the other an African and African Diasporic contemporary art project/platform on Black  Lives today  titled,  Imagined New.  His articles have appeared in the Financial Times, and he is a regular columnist for the South African newspaper, Mail & Guardian.Over the  past few months,  he has written a series of newspaper articles  regarding the political situation in the United States that put it in historical context. These were published in the The Mail and Guardian and address  the Black Lives Matter protests, the U.S.  Election and the coup attempt at the Capital on Jan 6.  Our editor, Sadia Abbas,  spoke with Prof.  Bogues.