The goal of the Political Concepts Initiative is to serve as a platform for revising, inventing, and experimenting with concepts while exploring the political dimension of their use and dissemination. Political Concepts enhances critical questioning of the political in the widest sense of the notion and creates a framework for an ongoing interdisciplinary conversation in the humanities and social sciences. Read more.
Political Concepts
Upcoming Events
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Dec6December 6 and 7, 2019
The year’s conference of the Political Concepts Initiative is dedicated to the theme of “Retouch” and it explores different modalities and initiatives of repair and reparation, redress and restoration, recovery and renewal, redistribution, remedy and recuperation, resurgence and the retouch of shared worlds. These are impacted by lasting structures of imperialism, racial capitalism, and gender violence.
Speakers will address questions related to lasting structures of imperialism, racial capitalism, and gender violence, catalyzed by present movements such as Black Lives Matter, DAPL, food sovereignty, and #Me Too. Participants are invited to propose and engage with concepts through which these crimes and the indispensability of reparations and retouch can be described, explained and analyzed, and a different world can be imagined once these crimes are acknowledged.
More information about this event will be forthcoming.
Previous Events
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Dec7December 7 and 8, 2018
The 2018 annual conference of the Political Concepts Initiative is dedicated to analyzing the contemporary conditions of knowledge production, with a focus on the sciences and the university. The “Science Edition” is co-organized by Timothy Bewes, Leela Gandhi, Adi Ophir, and Lukas Rieppel and brings together scholars with a broad range of disciplinary trainings and affiliations, including for example anthropology, biology, gender studies, history of science, law, media studies, philosophy, physics, and sociology.
Speakers present a single concept, one that needs to be revised, deconstructed, or invented in order to understand, criticize, and, if necessary resist recent changes in the organization of scientific knowledge and academic knowledge more broadly. This concept is a tool for a critical explication of ways in which scientific knowledges have been impacted by, and integrated into, the neoliberal economy and global order, the forces that have eroded liberal democratic regimes and brought about the disintegration of the common, and the struggles for decolonization, democracy and social justice. Presentations question, first, the ways these processes, forces, and struggles work through the sciences and transform the inner fabric of scientific research and academic practice, and second, how science itself has been shaped as an arena of political struggle. Videos are available on YouTube.
Friday, December 7 8:45 AM – 9:00 AM Greetings and Opening Remarks 9:00 AM – 11:20 AM Stephanie Dick • Database [video ]
Dan Hirschman • Stylized Facts [video ]
Moderator: Adi Ophir11:20 AM – 11:40 AM Coffee Break 11:40 AM – 1:30 PM Rebecca Nedostup • Practice/Praxis [video ]
Barbara Herrnstein Smith • Scientism [video ]
Moderator: Sharon Krause1:30 PM – 3:00 PM Lunch Break 3:00 PM – 4:50 PM Alex Csiszar • Peer Review [video ]
Kaushik Sunder Rajan • Value [video ]
Moderator: Alka Menon4:50 PM – 5:10 PM Coffee Break 5:10 PM – 7:00 PM Raphael Sassower • Scientific Progress [video ]
Tamara Chin • Homo Geoeconomicus [video ]
Moderator: Etienne BalibarSaturday, December 8 9:10 AM – 11:00 AM Etienne Benson • Environment [video ]
Joanna Radin • Future [video ]
Moderator: Timothy Bewes11:00 AM – 11:20 AM Coffee Break 11:20 AM – 1:10 PM Mara Mills • Impairment [video ]
Iris Montero • Scala Naturae [video ]
Moderator: Leela Gandhi1:10 PM – 2:40 PM Lunch Break 2:40 PM – 4:30 PM Banu Subramaniam • Diaspora/e [video unavailable]
Suman Seth • Race [video unavailable]
Moderator: Lukas Rieppel4:30 PM – 4:50 PM Coffee Break 4:50 PM – 6:40 PM Yarden Katz • Entrepreneurial Science [video ]
Peter Galison and Noah Feldman • Corporatized Knowledge [video ]
Moderator: Jacques LezraThe event is free and open to the public.
This conference is funded in part by the Herbert H. Goldberger Lectureship, the CV Starr Foundation Lectureship, the Humanities Initiative Programming Fund, and the Program in Science, Technologies, and Society.
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Dec1
The goal of Political Concepts is to experiment with modes of concept analysis as a tool for enhancing critical questioning of the political, in the widest sense, and to create a framework for an ongoing interdisciplinary conversation in the humanities and social sciences. It offers a platform for exploring the political dimensions of the way concepts work, are used, and disseminated. The 2017-18 conference is dedicated to analyzing and contesting the transformation of the American political system under the presidency of Donald Trump.
Speakers include: Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University (“Academic Freedom”); Anthony Bogues, Brown University (“Disobedience”); Claire Brault, Brown University (“Uchronia”); John Cayley, Brown University (“Reading”); Wendy Chun, Brown University (“Authenticity”); Zahid R. Chaudhary, Princeton University (“Impunit”); Beshara Doumani, Brown University (“Academy”); Sara Guindani, Collège d’études mondiales, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (“Transparency”); Jack Halberstam, Columbia (“Wildness”); Lynne Joyrich, Brown University (“Television”; Lisa Lowe, Tufts University (“Migrant”); Brian Meeks, Brown University (“Hegemony”); Nicholas Mirzoeff, New York University (“Love”); Paul Nahme, Brown University (“Disenchantment”); Ben Parker, Brown University (“Disruption”); Joan Scott, Institute of Advance Studies (“Trump”); and Françoise Vergès, Collège d’études mondiales, Fondation Maison de sciences de l’homme, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown University (“Water”).
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Dec2
The goal of Political Concepts is to serve as a platform for revising, inventing, and experimenting with concepts while exploring the political dimension of their use and dissemination. Participants operate under the assumption that our era urgently needs a revised political lexicon that would help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities at large can and should contribute toward such a revision. In the past, some of the participants revised key political concepts while others showed the political work done by terms and common nouns that are not usually considered “political.”
Speakers include: Jacques Lezra, New York University (NYU); Ellen Rooney, Modern Culture and Media/English; Jay Bernstein, New School for Social Research; Didier Fassin, Institute for Advanced Study/Princeton; Emily Apter, NYU; Adi Ophir, Cogut Center for the Humanities/Middle East Studies; Charles Mills, City University of New York (CUNY); Bruce Robbins, Columbia University; Stathis Gourgouris, Columbia; Judith Butler, University of California/Berkeley; Patrice Maniglier, Université Paris Ouest/Nanterre; Monique David-Ménard, Université Paris VII/Diderot and Institute for Cultural Inquiry/Berlin; Ann Stoler, New School; Gary Wilder, CUNY; Michel Feher, Zone Books; Bernard Harcourt, Columbia; Peter Osborne, Kingston University/London; and Étienne Balibar, Université Paris Ouest/Nanterre and Columbia. -
Dec4
The goal of Political Concepts is to serve as a platform for revising, inventing, and experimenting with concepts while exploring the political dimension of their use and dissemination. Participants operate under the assumption that our era urgently needs a revised political lexicon that would help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities at large can and should contribute toward such a revision. In the past, some of the participants revised key political concepts while others showed the political work done by terms and common nouns that are not usually considered “political.”
Concepts under consideration at this event: Abiura, Agency, Bondage, Desert, Disappearance, Formation, Gesture, Indeterminacy, Minority, Nature, Possession, Property, Publicity, Shibboleth, Sovereignty and Strike. -
Apr10
The goal of Political Concepts is to serve as a platform for revising, inventing, and experimenting with concepts while exploring the political dimension of their use and dissemination. Participants operate under the assumption that our era urgently needs a revised political lexicon that would help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities at large can and should contribute toward such a revision. In the past, some of the participants revised key political concepts while others showed the political work done by terms and common nouns that are not usually considered “political.”
Speakers include: Amanda Anderson, English; Susan Bernstein, Comparative Literature/German Studies; Timothy Bewes, English; Stephen Bush, Religious Studies; Beshara Doumani, Middle East Studies; Jacques Khalip, English; Jacques Ranciere, Philosophy, European Graduate School, Saas-Fee; Thangam Ravindranathan, French Studies; Gerhard Richter, German Studies/Comparative Literature; Lukas Rieppel, History; Philip Rosen, Modern Culture and Media; Michael Sawyer, Africana Studies; Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Pembroke Center/Italian Studies/Comparative Literature; Peter Szendy, Comparative Literature; Elizabeth Weed, Pembroke Center; David Wills, French Studies.
Moderators include: Joan Copjec, Modern Culture and Media; Bonnie Honig, Modern Culture and Media / Political Sciences; Lynne Joyrich, Modern Culture and Media; Adi Ophir, Cogut Center for the Humanities/ Middle East Studies; Marc Redfield, Comparative Literature; Ravit Reichman, English; Rebecca Schneider, Theatre Arts and Performance Studies; and Michael Steinberg, Cogut Center for the Humanities. -
Nov15All Day
Conference • “Political Concepts at Brown: A Critical Lexicon in the Making”
Pembroke Hall, Room 305An ongoing project, “Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon” takes as its goal to serve as a platform for revising, inventing, and experimenting with concepts while exploring the political dimension of their use and dissemination. The project’s participants operate under the assumption that our era urgently needs a revised political lexicon that would help us better understand the world in which we live and act, and that the humanities at large can and should contribute toward such a revision. In the past, some of the participants revised key political concepts while others showed the political work done by terms and common nouns that are not usually considered “political.”
Scholars from all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences are invited to re-think and re-articulate concepts they are working with or to construct new ones that seem necessary for their work.
Speakers include: Ariella Azoulay, Brown University; Étienne Balibar, Columbia University and Université de Paris X; Nathaniel Berman, Brown University; Eduardo Cadava, Princeton University; Jean Comaroff, Harvard University; Federico Finchelstein, The New School; Bonnie Honig, Brown University; Andreas Kalyvas, The New School; A. Kiarina Kordela, Macalester College; Jacques Lezra, New York University; Achille Mbembe, Duke University and University of the Witwatersrands; Kevin McLaughlin, Brown University; Elias Muhanna, Brown University; Adi Ophir, Tel Aviv University/Brown; Linda Quiquivix, Brown University; and Ellen Rooney, Brown University.
Panel chairs include: Jay Bernstein, The New School; Susan Bernstein, Brown University; Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University; Barrymore Bogues, Brown University; Stathis Gourgouis, Columbia University; Michael Steinberg, Brown University; Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Brown University; and Ann Stoler, The New School.