PM Irvin

PM researches the political thought of W.E.B. Du Bois and 20th century Black radicalism. His work is at the intersection of the history of Africana philosophy and the political theory of empire.

His current research theorizes Du Bois' mature conception of the color line, i.e. the socioeconomic and political division of the world along racial lines. This is expressed in Du Bois' forgotten theory of "the colonial system", articulated in unpublished and out-of-print materials from the 1940s to the 1960s. For Du Bois, the colonial system consists in the intertwined forces of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism on a world scale, led by the Western European powers (and after WWII, the United States.) Further, his work theorizes Du Bois' longstanding view that colonial imperialism is the primary root cause of war; he develops this view in conversation with recent work in heterodox political economy.

Outside of doing political philosophy, PM enjoys spending time in nature, drinking coffee, and eating at local restaurants. He also loves spending time with his cat, Lyla, who is named after a line from the beautiful poem “Your Night is of Lilac” by Mahmoud Darwish.