Charles W. Mills


Charles Wade Mills is a Jamaican philosopher. He is known for his work in social and political philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as centered on class, gender, and race. Mills is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, in New York City.

Education and career

Mills earned his B.Sc. at the University of the West Indies, and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1985. His dissertation was titled "The Concept of Ideology in the Thought of Marx and Engels". Mills taught physics in Kingston, Jamaica, from 1971 to 1973 at the College of Arts, Science and Technology, and from 1976 to 1977 at Campion College; he previously taught philosophy at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Illinois at Chicago where he was a UIC Distinguished Professor.
Mills was also John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University, before moving in August 2016 to a senior post at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Mills was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

Research areas and publications

Mills's main research interests are in political theory, particularly around issues of social class, gender, and race. He has published numerous articles on Marxism, critical race theory, and African-American philosophy. His book The Racial Contract won a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award for the study of bigotry and human rights in North America. The award states, "Charles Mills's treatment of the biases in western philosophy in The Racial Contract is a tour de force."

Works

Books