Abstract
‘History stops at the moment when the difference, the Opposition, between Master and Slave Disappears,’ Alexandre Kojève famously claimed in his 1930s lectures on Hegel. So long as there are still masters and slaves, we have history. When the master/slave dialectic has been abrogated, history will have come to an end. Kojève's essential syllogism (if slavery, then history) deserves to be engaged with – precisely in order to be turned against the End of History diagnosis that he launched.In contrast to CLR James in his contemporaneous work on the Haitian Revolution, Kojève had little to say on forms of actual slavery. This article proposes to desublimate Kojève by analysing his account of the master/slave dialectic in conjunction with contemporary aesthetic and activist engagement with neo-slavery in various guises – for example in the practice of Gulf Labor. In the process, the notion of the posthistorical is placed in a critical constellation with that of the posthuman.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
