Develops a new paradigm for understanding race, sexuality, and national citizenship

In Freedom with Violence, Chandan Reddy develops a new paradigm for understanding race, sexuality, and national citizenship. He examines a crucial contradiction at the heart of modernity: the nation-state’s claim to provide freedom from violence depends on its systematic deployment of violence against peoples perceived as nonnormative and irrational. Reddy argues that the modern liberal state is organized as a “counterviolence” to race even as, and precisely because, race persists as the condition of possibility for the modern subject. Rejecting liberal notions of modernity as freedom from violence or revolutionary ideas of freedom through violence, Reddy contends that liberal modernity is a structure for authorizing state violence. Contemporary neoliberal societies link freedom to the notion of legitimate (state) violence and produce narratives of liberty that tie rights and citizenship to institutionalized violence. To counter these formulations, Reddy proposes an alternative politics of knowledge grounded in queer of color critique and critical ethnic studies. He uses issues that include asylum law and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to illustrate this major rethinking of the terms of liberal modernity.

"“[A] significant contribution in both critical ethnic studies and queer studies. Reddy’s willingness to look beyond his examples could even be the reason it offers so much.”" - Ethnic and Racial Studies

"“In this ambitious book, Reddy examines the coupling of freedom and violence under the modern state. He untangles literary texts, legal structures and social practices to argue that the state legitimizes further racial violence through granting freedom.”" - Sexualities

"“Reddy has produced a substantial work that rethinks the interconnections between race and sexuality as constitutive to the vision of freedom and identity, and he exposes the violence that attends those ideals in the 20th century. . . . This book forced this reviewer to rethink his own engagement with these issues in his teaching. It will challenge many boundaries in the university and in US culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Sophisticated upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, faculty.”" - Choice

"“Reddy’s previous work brilliantly spilled over disciplinary boundaries in ways that have made Freedom with Violence one of the most widely awaited first books in my memory. George Lipsitz’s back cover assessment of it as ‘one of the most important books of our times’ captures both the import and the timeliness of Reddy’s contribution.”" - American Quarterly