Between US Race Theory and French Republican Ideals: Nadia Yala Kisukidi and Claire Tancons in Conversation

September 15, 2021

As she settles in France after nearly two decades working in the US, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, curator Claire Tancons wonders how France’s foundational Republican ideals and contemporary multicultural experience rub against each other through the lens of American race theory and identity politics—recently demonized by factions within France’s higher education system and at the upper levels of the Republic itself. Nadia Yala Kisukidi is a French philosopher and a curator of the 2021 Yango Biennale in Kinshasa who has examined the colonial implications of "blackness" in France and Europe. What can the US and France learn from each other about the philosophical, cultural, and institutional challenges of race and identity today?