Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara Race and racism are in many ways the building blocks of the contemporary world and the social universe we take for granted. The unfreedom, despotism, exclusion, inequality, and violence that are associated with the absolutist regimes from which contemporary society has evolved lives on in the profound presence of race and racism: the “dark matter†of our lives today. This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies, Spanish & Portuguese, Sociology, and Middle East Studies.