“Humanity,” International Law, & Third World Sovereignty
This seminar will explore the contested category of universal humanity and its tense relationship with ‘Third World’ sovereignty. In an international order formally organized around the equality of sovereign states, yet marked by radical asymmetries, how is the category of humanity deployed and disputed? How has it both bolstered and undermined the coming-into-being of a ‘Third World’ made up of sovereign states?
We’re particularly interested in the politics of humanity in the context of international law: the seminar will take up the suggestion that both international law and conceptions of humanity were shaped in colonial encounters and continue to be bound up in imperial relationships. A longer genealogy of the concept of universal humanity (with religious and imperial underpinnings) will inform our discussions of international law and humanitarian discourse in the decades since WWII—we will both examine the ideas that motivate and legitimate international legal mechanisms and consider how these juridical forms then act back on what we think of as ‘humanity.’ The seminar will thus unpack the slipperiness of such concepts as ‘humanity,’ ‘humanitarian,’ ‘human,’ and ‘humane.’
Within this broad framework, our conversations will take up several themes of contemporary relevance:
1. What kinds of claims are permitted by the language of universal humanity and the assertion of humanitarian principles? What do these concepts do to—and for—ideas of citizenship and sovereignty in the Third World? Of particular interest here is the recent emergence of interventionist discourses like ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘failed states,’ which potentially undermine sovereignty in the Third World.
2. How do economic crises—and uneven development—affect the international political order? A discussion of global economic formations will illuminate power imbalances at the core of notions of humanity and sovereignty.
3. Fifty years after decolonization, ideas of universal humanity and sovereignty that once seemed to offer an emancipatory politics for the Third World seem trapped within development discourse and an asymmetric international order. We will consider the tension between a normative support for sovereignty in the Third World and the constraints it places on political imagination.
Invited scholars for 2010-2011: Martti Koskenniemi, Susan Buck-Morss, David Scott, Jean Comaroff, Talal Asad, Joseph Slaughter, Nathaniel Berman, and Uday Singh Mehta.
Co-Chairs
Amiel Melnick (amiel@whatfelt.org)
Doctoral student, Anthropology, Columbia University
Ahilan Kadirgamar (ahilan.kadirgamar@gmail.com)
Doctoral student, Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
Gary Wilder (gwilder@gc.cuny.edu)
Associate Professor, Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
Seminar Schedule
September 24 / Discussion of Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”
Discussants:
October 1 / Invited Scholar: Martti Koskenniemi
Professor of International Law & Director, Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki
“The Fate of Public International Law”
Discussant: Ahilan Kadirgamar, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
October 22 / Invited Scholar: Susan Buck-Morss
Distinguished Professor, Ph.D. Program in Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center
“Sovereign Right and the Global Left”
Discussant: Neil Agarwal, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
November 12 / Invited Scholar: David Scott
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
“The Theory of Haiti”
Discussant: Mark Drury, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
December 3 / Invited Scholar: Jean Comaroff
Bernard E. and Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor, Anthropology, University of Chicago
“Detective Fictions: In Pursuit of Sovereignty in the Postcolony”
Discussant: Samuel Shearer, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
December 10 / Invited Scholar: Talal Asad
Distinguished Professor, Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
“Human Atrocities, Human Rights” and “Thinking about Terrorism and Just War”
Discussant: Ahmed Sharif, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
February 18 / Invited Scholar: Joseph Slaughter
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
“Pathetic Fallacies: Personification, Human Rights, and the Humanities”
Discussant: Kandice Chuh, Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center
March 4 / Discussion of Hannah Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man,” and Eichmann in Jerusalem: 3-20, 234-279
March 18 / Discussion of Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law: 13-52, 65-114, [310-20]
April 1 / Invited Scholar: Nathaniel Berman
Rahel Varnhagen Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Modern Culture, Brown University
“‘The Sacred Conspiracy’: Religion, Nationalism, and the Crisis of Internationalism”
Discussant: Ayça Çubukçu, Lecturer on Social Studies, Harvard University
April 29 / Invited Scholar: Uday Singh Mehta
Distinguished Professor, Ph.D. Program in Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center
“Gandhi on Fear, Sacrifice and the Forging of a People”
Discussant: Anjuli Raza Kolb, PhD student in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
May 6 / Closing session
