The Architecture of Freedom : Hegel, Subjectivity, and the Postcolonial State

The Architecture of FreedomAuthor(s): Hassanaly LadhaThrough 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, th