Dr Sarah Bufkin

• DPhil in Politics, University of Oxford, 2021
• MA in Moral, Legal, and Political Philosophy, The Queen’s University – Belfast, 2015
• BA in Cultural Studies, History, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, 2013

Sarah Bufkin is a social and political theorist focused on antiracist critique in postimperial contexts like the UK and white settler contexts like the US. She draws on resources from radical Black Atlantic thought, anticolonial and postcolonial critique, feminisms, Marxism, and Critical Theory, including the Frankfurt School, French poststructuralism, and British Cultural Studies.

She has previously written about race and ideology, White hegemony, and the biopolitics of British rule in Northern Ireland. Her current book project focuses on Frantz Fanon’s sociogenic method of antiracist critique. The monograph argues that political theorists ought to follow Fanon in adopting a sociologically grounded account of racialized practices, rather than work with a thin or overly abstract account of ‘race.’ Future projects will look at Stuart Hall and conceptions of temporality in radical Black Atlantic thought.

Sarah joined POLSIS in 2022 from Oxford, where she was a postdoctoral researcher and an Examination Fellow in Politics at All Souls College. She previously completed her DPhil in political theory at Oxford, her MA in moral and political philosophy at QUB – Belfast, and her BA in Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

• Race, Ethnicity, and Empire (2^nd year undergraduate)
• History of Political Ideas (2^nd year undergraduate)

Sarah welcomes PhD students interested in pursuing projects in antiracist political theory, anticolonial and radical black political thought, and critical theory.

Current projects

• Frantz Fanon and racialized praxis
• Raciological thinking and ideology critique
• Stuart Hall on the articulation of race and class
• The carceral state and imperial techniques of population control

• Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford