Eduardo Bonilla-Silva is the James B. Duke Professor of sociology at Duke University. He gained visibility in the social sciences with his 1997 American Sociological Review article, “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation,” where he challenged analysts to study racial matters structurally rather than from the sterile prejudice perspective. His book, Racism Without Racists(5th edition in 2017), has become a classic in the field and influenced scholars in education, religious studies, political science, rhetoric, psychology, political science, legal studies, and sociology.
His research has appeared in journals such as Sociological Inquiry, Racial and Ethnic Studies, Race and Society, Discourse and Society, American Sociological Review, Journal of Latin American Studies, Contemporary Sociology, Critical Sociology, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Research in Politics and Society, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, The American Behavioral Scientist, Political Power and Social Theory, and Social Problems among others. To date he has published five books, namely, White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era (co-winner of the 2002 Oliver Cox Award given by the American Sociological Association), Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States (2004 Choice Award and again in 2015) (fifth edition came out in July 2017), White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism (with Ashley Doane), in 2008 White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Methodology (with Tukufu Zuberi and also the co-winner of the 2009 Oliver Cox Award), and in 2011 State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the United States(with Moon Kie Jung and João H. Costa Vargas).
Bonilla-Silva has received many awards, most notably, the 2007 Lewis Coser Award given by the Theory Section of the American Sociological Association for Theoretical-Agenda Setting and, in 2011, the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award given by the American Sociological Association “to an individual or individuals for their work in the intellectual traditions of the work of these three African American scholars.” He served as President of the Southern Sociological Society and the American Sociological Association in 2017-2018.
His most recent work has been an article in Social Currents titled, “‘Racists,’ ‘Class Anxieties,’ Hegemonic Racism, and Democracy in Trump’s America and “Feeling Race: Theorizing the racial Economy of Emotions,” in the American Sociological Review. He is working on a paper to reorient work on microagressions and on how to theorize racial formations in the Americas and the Caribbean.