Shannon Sullivan’s perspectives on transactional bodies, racism, and identity: a pragmatist feminist approach

ABSTRACT

This interview focuses on Shannon Sullivan’s pragmatist feminist views on transactional bodies, racism, sexism, identity and white privilege. Referencing Sullivan’s most important works – Living Across and Through Skins, Revealing Whiteness, Good White People and White Privilege – this conversation draws attention to the complexities of racial discrimination and how they often relate to sexism in white privileged societies. The interview also discusses Sullivan’s work in The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression, which provides an explanation of how topics of health and the biopsychosocial body are related to racism and sexism.

KEYWORDS:

• Class
• color/colour
• identity
• race
• whiteness

Notes on the interviewee

Shannon Sullivan is Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Philosophy and Health Psychology at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte (USA). She works in the intersections of feminist philosophy, critical philosophy of race, continental philosophy, and the philosophy of the Americas/American pragmatism. She is author or editor of ten books, including Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (2007), Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism (2014), The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression (2015), and White Privilege (2019). Good White People was named a 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, a Ms. Magazine Must-Read Feminist Book of 2014, and received the Society of Professors of Education 2016 Outstanding Book Award. Her latest work is an edited collection on Thinking the US South: Contemporary Philosophy from Southern Perspectives (2021).

Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to Dr Blu Tirohl for her insightful comments and detailed suggestions on this interview.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Goutam Karmakar

Goutam Karmakar, Ph.D. (English), is an Assistant Professor of English at Barabazar Bikram Tudu Memorial College, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, West Bengal, India. He completed his Ph.D. at the Department of Humanities and Social Science, NIT Durgapur, West Bengal, India. His recently published edited volumes are The Lie of the Land: An Anthology of Indian Poetry in English (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2020) and South Asian Literature, Culture and Society: A Critical Rumination (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2020). He has also co-edited a volume titled “Religion in South Asian Anglophone Literature: Traversing Resistance, Margins and Extremism”, Routledge, 2021 (forthcoming). He has been published in journals such as South Asian Review, Journal of Gender Studies, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, National Identities, Asiatic and many more. He can be reached at [email protected]

Somasree Sarkar

Somasree Sarkar is an Assistant Professor of English at Ghoshpukur College, University of North Bengal, West Bengal, India. She is also pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of English, University of North Bengal, West Bengal, India. Her articles have been published in an edited volume, Partition Literature and Cinema: A Critical Introduction (UK: Routledge, 2020). Her articles have also been published in Taylor and Francis journals. She can be reached at [email protected]