Robert Bernasconi

By Sara L. Austin, EdD

Robert Bernasconi is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy from the School of English and American Studies and a D.Phil at Sussex University. His areas of specialization include critical philosophy of race, social and political philosophy, ethics, and nineteenth and twentieth century continental philosophy.

Most recently, Bernasconi has taught courses on Medieval Ethics, Critical Philosophy of Race, Sartre, Fanon, Levinas, and Modern Political Philosophy and Slavery. He is a prolific writer who writes at least one piece for each of his areas of interest each year. His most recent published works include “A Most Dangerous Error: The Boasian Myth of a Knock-Down Argument against Racism”, “The Other Does not Respond: Levinas’s Response to Blanchot”, and “Subjectivity Must Be Defended: Substitution, Entanglement, and the Prehistory of the Me in Levinas”.

Bernasconi is perhaps best well-known for his work on critical philosophy of race, and as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, whose works are widely represented in Bernasconi’s catalog. He is also editor of three journals, titled, Critical Philosophy of Race, Levinas Studies, and Ecoethica.

Bernasconi has a cocktail named after him. The “Bernasconi” is made up of equal parts of citron vodka, Cointreau, Campari, a double part of fresh grapefruit juice, finished with prosecco and an orange slice.

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Major published works by Robert Bernasconi:

• The Idea of Race
• Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy
• How to Read Sartre