These three figures were mentioned by artist Mark Bradford and have had an influence on the post modern movement. They question social conditions such as class, race, gender, and human sexuality, examining their role in modern society. They have been lecturers, professors, authors, and social movers.

Cornel West was born in 1953, the son of a baptist minister. He was the first African American to graduate form Princeton with a PH.D in philosophy. He received his undergraduate education at Harvard University graduating in 1973.
Today he is most known for his work as an American Philosopher, academic, author, activist and as a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The bulk of his work focuses on the roles of race, gender and class in American society.




Bell Hooks is the pen name for author Gloria Jean Watkins.
Bell is an author, feminist, and social activist.
Her work deals primarily with systems of oppression and domination, writing about systems such as race, class and gender. Primarily looking through the lens of a postmodern perspective she has addressed said topics as well as sexuality,history and mass media.






Michel Foucault
(15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) 

Foucault was a french native, philosopher, historian of ideas, philologist, literary critic, and social theorist. His theories addressed the subjects of power and control and how they were used by social institutions  to exact control.

The theme that underlies all Foucault's work is the relationship between power and knowledge, and how the former is used to control and define the latter. What authorities claim as 'scientific knowledge' are really just means of social control. Foucault shows how, for instance, in the eighteenth century 'madness' was used to categorise and stigmatise not just the mentally ill but the poor, the sick, the homeless and, indeed, anyone whose expressions of individuality were unwelcome.

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— Philip Stokes, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers (2004)