Social Psychology Commons^™

Matter, Memory, Multiverse : The Prism Of Reality, Sean William Johnson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

When Isaac Newton conducted his prism experiment, and discovered a “new theory of light and colours,” the experiment had far more social and scientific import than he could have anticipated. In his paper, Newton broke “whiteness” down into its true, conglomerate, multi-layered essence. “For the first time,” a phrase that was used quite a bit during the Enlightenment and Restoration of the 17th-18th centuries, whiteness was understood as a composite that contained every other colour. What happens to the paradox of the Enlightenment-- predicated upon “individuality” that was strangely restricted to white males-- when the very basis of “whiteness” has …