Kubrick and Race

Published 15 March 2025

Kubrick and Race investigates race and racism in Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. At first glance, Kubrick’s films are very white, but his work with race is complex. Sometimes he addressed race covertly, indirectly, in hidden ways, or in the background, so that race becomes a palimpsest that is visible through the foreground story. Did Kubrick repress and deny racial inequities? Do his works condone and participate in racism, or did he represent it as a lived reality? This volume asks these questions, opening a discussion that is long overdue. Operating from a clear understanding of the contemporary context, the book spans past, present, and future, offering readers a chance to witness – afresh – ways in which Kubrick and his prolific work allow one to criss-cross academic disciplines as varied as communication, literature, psychiatry, media, film, and Black studies. This collection of essays opens new routes to and from Kubrick, in and out of the academy, convincingly and exhaustively.