Sille Kima ~ Towards molten light, deep dark

Thesis Advisor: Dr.Ana Teixeira Pinto

Thesis: Towards molten light, deep dark

July, 2024 

Abstract

The dark/light binary system, deeply embedded in Western thought, often goes unquestioned, masking its symbolic and moral implications. This thesis traces the evolution of this binary from its origins to its transformation during the Enlightenment, where the "light of God" shifted to the "light of reason“ and beyond to the present day. Analyzing the works thinkers like Burke, Kant and Hegel, Moten, Fanon, Mbembe and looking into the origins of ideologies dealing with limitations, self/other, interorities and exteriorities, visual and avisual, the thesis reveals how the shifts in the meaning of light and dark have and are continually being used, often subliminally, to justify violence towards, and exploitation of people and land alike. I argue that the mindset of extraction allowed for the emergence of a totalising vision. A way of undoing of the current regime of necropolitical totality, interlinked with symbolics of light and dark, might be within its own imaginary. The thesis works towards another mode of relating to light and dark, sketched out briey in the epilogue.

Author Sille Kima