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List of contents
Introduction
Part One Hegel’s Memnon
Chapter 1. The Figure of History
Chapter 2. Naming Building
Chapter 3. From Memnon to Mnemosyne
Chapter 4. Architecture and the Poetry of Light
Chapter 5. The Architectonic in Time
Part Two Africa and the Idea of Freedom
Chapter 6. The Structure of The Phenomenology of Spirit
Chapter 7. The World Turned Upside-Down
Chapter 8. Slavery and the Subject
Chapter 9. Africa, Agency, and Freedom
Chapter 10. The Postcolonial State
Conclusion: Aesthetics and Sovereignty
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Hassanaly Ladha is Associate Professor in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and a B.A. in English from Yale University.
Summary
Through a radical reading of Hegel’s oeuvre, The Architecture of Freedom sets forth a theory of open borders centered on a new interpretation of the German philosopher’s related conceptions of language and the aesthetic, mastery and servitude, and subjectivity and the state.
The book’s argument turns on Hegel’s identification of “Africa” as a fluid, utopic space enabling the traversal of the East-West binary. As Hegel’s figure for the non-historical, Africa emerges as the negativity that propels the movement of the dialectic in time.
Mirroring the “shrouded” continent’s relation to history, Kantian “architectonics” step out of the realm of logic in Hegelian thought and drive the historical unfolding of the aesthetic. In a foundational move, Hegel hypostatizes the aesthetic entanglement of built and linguistic form as the colossus of Memnon, an African warrior memorialized in ancient architecture, myth, and art. Reaching for freedom, the Memnon marks the architectonic modality through which the African slave, at the telos of history, will fulfill the spiritual promise of the human and bring about the politically mature state.
The book examines the syncretic figure of the Memnon and slave across Hegel’s lecture courses, the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Encyclopedia, and the Philosophy of Right. Ultimately the book calls for a reassessment of a range of Hegelian philosophemes across disciplines in the humanities. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in philosophy, postcolonial and African studies, political theory, architecture, and historiography.
Foreword
A radical reassessment not only of Hegel’s oeuvre and legacy, but also of contemporary postcolonial political theory rooted ultimately in Hegel’s work, discussing his thought in relation to colonialism, post-colonialism, and anti-colonialism.
Additional text
Ladha’s magisterial Architecture works its brilliant way through the entire Hegelian corpus, providing our first full analysis of the architectonic through-line of dialectical thought. Retracing the aesthetic origin of freedom from the hieroglyph-laden pyramid to the 'hieroglyph of reason' always imperfectly realized in the 'architectonic' 'artwork' of the particular 'state,' Architecture is a magnificent, pathbreaking work.
