Cecil Foster presents a rigorous interdisciplinary analysis of blackness by challenging existing notions of blackness and arguing for the viability of a multicultural world.
In Blackness and Modernity Foster traces the main philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and mythological arguments that support views of modernity as a failed quest for whiteness. He outlines how these views were implemented as part of a "world history" and shows how Canada became the first country to officially reject this approach by adopting multiculturalism.
Blackness and Modernity presents four categories for understanding blackness and whiteness: the somatic, cultural, status differential, and the idealistic. The somatic - the colour of skin - is merely one category, and perhaps the least meaningful for, while it may be the most important for some people, Foster argues that multiculturalism, which he views as ontological blackness, is an attempt to make rational idealism the only category that matters.
Review quotes
"Foster brings historical depth to his work and shows that the social and political recognition of blackness and multiculturalism is itself a contingent moment in history." George Dei, sociology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
“Blackness and Modernity is a magnum opus, wide ranging, almost scandalously ambitious, the work of a person with a generous heart and a brilliant mind, willing to toil in Clio’s Vineyard for many years. This book should reinvigorate the political quest for a genuine multiculturalism.” Canadian Journal of Sociology
Cecil Foster is an associate professor, sociology and anthropology, University of Guelph, and the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, including Where Race Does Not Matter: The New Spirit of Modernity.
