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  • Friday, June 21, 2019 - 2:00pm to 4:00pm

Fisher-Bennett Hall Faculty Lounge  


Articulations of equality guide the western philosophical tradition, even as the material history of the west incriminates those ideals. Under empire, after humanism, in the throes of neoliberalism, what are promising conceptions and practices of equality? What remains to be embraced, developed, and invented in the theory of equality? How does the centrality of liberalism to nineteenth-century intellectual and political dynamics shape the study of the nineteenth century today? What new conversations in the field can open up thanks to recent work (such as Anderson, Goodlad, Hadley) revisiting liberalism, or theoretical explorations of the literary production of equality (Derrida, Ranciere), or critical developments of the posthuman (Bennett, Haraway, Lyotard)? Is there a dialectic of equality? How do the humanities approach or enact equality?    

Readings:
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (chapters 2-3)
Kandice Chuh, The Difference Aesthetics Makes: On the Humanities After Man (intro)
Alex Callinicos, Equality (excerpt)

 

All are welcome!