Political philosopher Joy James speaks with Lucius Outlaw, a philosopher concerned with matters of social and political life. Together with Zora J Murff and Terence Washington, they inform and discuss Murff’s artistic examination of the overarching structures that shape Black Americans’ desires and aspirations for the things that only appear to be liberatory. This subject matter is further explored in Murff’s forthcoming MASS MoCA exhibition RACE/HUSTLE, curated by Terence Washington, Curatorial Exchange Initiative Fellow.

RACE/HUSTLE is on view beginning December 6, 2025.

About the Exhibition:
Zora J Murff makes photographs, assemblages, videos, and text works that examine fast and slow violence, the rhythms and resonances of oppression throughout history and into our present, and the desire we are indoctrinated to cultivate for what ultimately hurts us. He is attentive to the structures of state violence in the U.S. and abroad and how they interlock with the mechanisms that make the effects of systems of domination invisible in everyday life. Murff’s photographs alternately capture poignant portraits, shots of playful light, the movement of cities, or signs of quiet life despite the odds. His collages combine text and images from a myriad of sources. For Murff, no issue is a single issue when the havoc created abroad is paid for, dearly, at home.

Read more about the exhibition here.

About the Speakers:
Ebenezer Fitch Professor of the Humanities at Williams College, Joy James is a political philosopher who works with organizers seeking social/environmental justice and the abolition of captivity, militarism, and war. James is the editor of The Angela Y. Davis Reader and Imprisoned Intellectuals, and co-editor of The Black Feminist Reader. Her recent books include: In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love; New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner; and Contextualizing Angela Davis: The Agency and Identity of an Icon. James’ current edited volumes are: ENGAGE: Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous Futures; Beyond Cop Cities; and Confronting Counterinsurgency.

Lucius Turner Outlaw (Jr.), the author of On Race and Philosophy (Routledge 1996) and Critical Social Theory in the Interests of Black Folks (Rowman & Littlefield 2005) and other writings, is Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, and W. Alton Jones Chair, Emeritus, of Vanderbilt University, having retired in August 2023. (He was recognized as the Joseph A. Johnson, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Professor for 2020-2021.) Prior to joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 2000, Outlaw was the T. Wistar Brown Professor in Philosophy at Haverford College (Haverford, Pennsylvania). Outlaw taught, researched, and wrote about race and ethnicity, American philosophy, Africana philosophy, critical social theory, social and political philosophy, and the history of philosophy in the “West.” Born in Starkville, Mississippi, he is a graduate of Fisk University (BA, 1967) and of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Boston College (PhD, Philosophy, 1972).

Zora J Murff (b. 1987) is an Oregon-based artist and educator interested in liberation from anti-Blackness. He uses his creative practice to explore the politics of racialization using provocative imagery, and practices photography expansively, stretching it across disciplines to create associative or implied images. He strives to speak plainly about visual culture and its entanglement with race, capitalism, and other forms of hierarchical oppression.

Terence Washington, an independent curator and writer, has been studying recently in the PhD program for Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. He is interested in artists’ visions of liberation, as well as how these visions work inside and outside of arts institutions. He has organized public programs at the National Gallery of Art and the Free Library of Philadelphia. He has also been an administrator for NXTHVN and Readying the Museum, as well as a guest curator at the MFA Boston. Washington has also written essays and poetry for exhibition catalogues and artist books, including two by Zora J Murff: At No Point in Between and True Colors (Or, Affirmations in a Crisis).