#4: Ethics 6/12/18



Thursday 6 December | 5 - 6.30pm | LHRI | All welcome 

For our fourth session of the year, we will be reading the second chapter of Precarious Life (2004), 'Violence, Mourning, Politics' alongside 'Precarity Talk' - a roundtable discussion of the topic between Butler and several other leading theorists. 


In 'Violence, Mourning, Politics,' Butler develops a theory of nonviolent ethics stemming from the acceptance that it is our vulnerability, and vulnerability to death and violence in particular, which connects us as humans. Adopting a relational view of the self, she reconfigures grief as a public, social experience which could and should be harnessed as a force for transformation, particularly in rethinking notions of community and international relations. State violence, she argues, is a consequence of the fact that modern nation states are founded on the principle of denying such vulnerability. Citing the US's military violence in the Middle East as an example, she demonstrates how this denial causes some forms of grief to be nationally amplified and legitimised, whilst others are diminished to the point of erasure; some lives are counted as liveable and grievable whilst others are derealised and hence cannot be grieved because they are not counted as lives. The pdf can be downloaded here. 

In 'Precarity Talk', a virtual roundtable, Butler debates the key ethical, critical and political implications of precarity with theorists Lauren Berlant, Bojana Cvejic, Isabell Lorey, Jasbir Puar, and Ana Vujanovic. The pdf can be downloaded here. 


We look forward to hearing your thoughts next week! 

Thursday 6 December | 5 - 6.30pm | LHRI | All welcome 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robinson session 3: Robinson and the Decolonial

Thursday 29th February November | 5:30 – 7:00pm | The Alumni Room (School of English) We are happy to announce interdisciplinary reading group Quilting Points will return after a short break. Following our readings of  Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition  last term, we will begin this year by reading two short essays in which Robinson develops the ideas of that book in relation to thinking about the legacy of decolonial struggles on the African continent. In ' The appropriation of Fanon ', Robinson takes issue with what he sees as postcolonial theory's depoliticized conception of Fanon, and opens this up into a critique of the "native bourgeoisie", which he then develops in ' In Search of a Pan-African Commonwealth ', into thinking through the association between Pan-Africanism and the form of the Nation-State.  Everyone (at whatever level of study & whether enrolled at the University or not)  is welcome, and no prior familiarity w...
Read more

Sylvia Wynter and The Tempest: 'Beyond Miranda's Meanings'

Image
Thursday 18 May | 5:30 - 7:00pm | Meeting Room G01 Written as an afterword to Out of the Kumbla (1994), the first edited collection of critical essays on Caribbean women’s literature, ' Beyond Miranda's Meaning: Un/silencing the "Demonic Ground" of Caliban's "Woman" ' analyses the ways in which race complicates gender, taking a discussion of Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a point of departure. According to Sylvia Wynter, this play not only posits Caliban as ‘the irrational native subject’ but in doing so also relegates 'Caliban’s "woman"' to a space of non-being. As such, the play reenacts the founding structure of the onto-epistemic order of Western Man. Analysing the function of the “ontological absence” of the Black female subject position, it is in this essay that Wynter coins the term “demonic ground”, which has since been taken up by various scholars in different ways, most notably by Katherine McKittrick. As always this sessio...
Read more

Quilting Points Symposium: ‘Racial Capitalism and Cultural Resistance’ - 1st May 2024

  Quilting Points are pleased to announce a symposium on the theme of ‘Racial Capitalism and Cultural Resistance’, inspired by our year-long consideration of the work of Cedric Robinson.  All are welcome to join a group of international researchers for a day of interdisciplinary papers, concluded by a keynote address from Dr. Dhanveer Singh Brar. Please find the full schedule below. There is no registration fee, we welcome people to drop-in on the day, and refreshments will be provided.  Any questions, queries or accessibility concerns please email  quiltingpoints@gmail.com Location : (Room LT 1.28, First Floor, Liberty Building (Moot Court), Belle Vue Road, Leeds. LS2 9JT -  https://maps.app.goo.gl/LbH9q7nj2mBjyXScA  -  https://what3words.com/busy.debit.shows ) Go through the main entrance and go straight ahead through two sets of double doors up to level one. The Moot Court LT is on your right . Accessibility information :  Entry is via the fron...
Read more