The organizers of the seminar “Race et culture: questions philosophiques” have just published the program for the 2025-2026 academic year. Several CRÉ members are among this year’s speakers, including Elena Choquette (Université du Québec en Outaouais), former CRÉ scholarship student (2012-2013), and Amandine Catala (Université du Québec à Montréal)!

Overview

The issue of racial and cultural minorities—their theoretical conceptualization and normative and political treatment—has suddenly taken on particular relevance and public prominence with the protest movements that arose in the wake of the police violence that led to the death of George Floyd in the United States. In France, following the pioneering work of Colette Guillaumin and Albert Memmi, researchers have been generating knowledge and tools for more than 20 years to question the injustices and inequalities that continue to affect these minorities. A significant part of these tools has been developed by reflecting on the idiosyncratic position of France and the French-speaking intellectual world in relation to the fields of racial studies, Black studies, cultural studies, and theories of multiculturalism, which have been developed extensively in the English-speaking world. French work inspired by these critical approaches has been particularly fruitful in many areas of the humanities and social sciences—sociology, political science, law, demography, history, comparative literature, etc.—but remains comparatively underdeveloped and less visible in philosophy.

The aim of the seminar is to provide a forum for reflection, bringing together, highlighting, and supporting the specifically philosophical dimensions of research on “racial and cultural issues.” This invites two important reflections. On the one hand, it is important that distinct philosophical approaches, which sometimes tend to ignore each other—history of philosophy, normative philosophy, critical theory, phenomenology, epistemology, social ontology, aesthetics, etc.—share their own contributions to the subject that is at the center of our joint reflections. On the other hand, philosophical reflection takes place in close and rigorous dialogue with other relevant disciplines: law, economics, history and art history, political science, sociology, anthropology, language and literature, but also biology, genetics, medical sciences, environmental sciences, etc.

Sessions to come

November 14, 2025, 2:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m., Institute in Paris, University of London, Auditorium, 9-11 de Constantine road, 75007 Paris (in-person)

• “Publier Fanon : itinéraire éditorial d’une pensée révolutionnaire”

December 4, 2025, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., remotely

• Ousmane Sarr: “Frantz Fanon et le problème de la race” (Meeting ID: 961 5329 0073, secret code: hx7kS8)

January 22, 2026, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., remotely

• Elena Choquette (UQO): “Justice linguistique en contexte de colonisations : réflexions à partir de la langue française au Québec” (Meeting ID: 982 5647 6124, secret code: C3h82S)

February 12, 2026, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., remotely

• Amandine Catala (UQÀM) : « Mémoire coloniale, injustice épistémique et égalité politique » (Meeting ID: 943 7001 5106, secret code: L9nSFE)

April 2, 2026, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., remotely

• Aurélia Bardon : « Comment l’État doit-il répondre à l’appropriation culturelle ? »

Logistical information

Sessions take place on Fridays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. exclusively online.

Each session will include a presentation of approximately 45 minutes (based on an article, a book chapter, or ongoing research), a response from a speaker of approximately ten minutes, and a discussion open to all participants.

Organized by Jamila Mascat (Utrecht University), Magali Bessone (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University), and Sophie Guérard de Latour (ENS Lyon-Triangle).

We look forward to seeing many of you there.