Robert Bernasconi

Robert L. Bernasconi is an American philosopher who is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He is known as a reader of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, and for his work on the concept of race. He has also written on the history of philosophy. Bernasconi was the president of Hegel Society of America from 2012 to 2014.

Career

Bernasconi received his doctorate from Sussex University. He taught at the University of Essex for thirteen years before taking up a position at the University of Memphis. In the fall of 2009, he moved from Memphis to the philosophy department at Pennsylvania State University. Bernasconi comes from an academic family and was born in Newcastle, United Kingdom. His brother John is the Director of Fine arts at the University of Hull. The family are of Italian background.

In addition to extensive work on Heidegger and Levinas, Bernasconi has written on Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Jacques Derrida, and numerous others.
In the early 1990s Bernasconi began to develop an interest in the concepts of race and racism, particularly in relation to the history of philosophy. In addition to writing many articles on race, racism, slavery, African philosophy and related topics, he has also edited and published primary material relating to these themes.

Race, Hybridity, and Miscegenation. With Kristie Dotson.
Race and Anthropology.
Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy. With Sybol Cook.
American Theories of Polygenesis.
The Cambridge Companion to Levinas. With Simon Critchley.
Concepts of Race in the Eighteenth Century.
Race.
In Proximity: Emmanuel Levinas and the Eighteenth Century. With Melvin New & Richard A. Cohen.
The Idea of Race. With Tommy Lee Lott.
Re-Reading Levinas. With Simon Critchley.
The Provocation of Levinas. With David Wood.
Derrida and Différance. With David Wood.
Time and Metaphysics. With David Wood.