Opening remarks by Jay Blair: Questions for discussion: What are the material conditions of abandonment? Do you see anticolonial, new social movements exhausting late liberalism and nonliberal nation-states like China enduring it, in agreement with Arrighi? With this mode of … Continue reading →

Opening remarks by Amiel Melnick: In tracing out links between what have been understood as different forms of insurance in the United States—insurance taken out on slaves, and life insurance—Michael Ralph’s paper draws our attention to speculative capital and its … Continue reading →

Opening remarks by Mariana Assis: I would like to start by suggesting a collective exercise of revisiting the objectives and questions initially raised by this seminar, so they remain on the background of our discussion of the relationship between emergency … Continue reading →

Opening remarks by Jini Kim Watson: I’d like to thank Nancy Fraser for sharing with us this provocative paper and for taking the time to join us today. I’m going to keep my comments brief, to allow for maximum time … Continue reading →

Opening remarks by Ezgi Canpolat: Today I would like to open our discussion on Levinas with some remarks on our previous meeting. In our previous seminar with Prof. Mamdani we discussed the question of how to deal with the cases … Continue reading →

Discussion of selected readings by Emmanuel Levinas “Substitution,” “Truth of Disclosure and Truth of Testimony,” “Essence and Disinterestedness,” and “Peace and Proximity” in Basic Philosophical Writings: 79-127, 161-169 Discussant: Ezgi Canpolat, doctoral student, anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center 12 – 2pm, … Continue reading →

I. Recap of last year, and some notes on the reading Last year at this time, reading Kant’s Perpetual Peace initiated a yearlong discussion around the tension between international law and sovereignty. Kant’s political theory of constitutional forms entailing overlapping … Continue reading →

The seminar schedule for 2011-2012 is now available! We have an exciting lineup of speakers and readings, and hope you will join us. As always, readings will be made available here. Note: because some of our speakers circulate drafts of … Continue reading →