Save the date! Jacques Rancière, Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School at Saas-Fee and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes—Saint-Denis, will be giving a public lecture entitled, "Shifting Borders: Art, Politics, and Ethics Today," on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 at 5:00pm. 

With Martin Jay, Ehrman Professor Emeritus of European History at UC Berkeley, as discussant. 

 

Abstract: While art exhibitions now take place in abandoned factories or warehouses, artists increasingly take upon themselves tasks of social investigation, historical reconstruction, archival research, political discussion and activism. At the same time, political protest can less and less be sustained by social and institutional forces. It must increasingly take on the form of an artistic performance, diverting public spaces to create its own time-space and invent new montages of words, images and movements. Should we consider the increasing porosity between the two spheres and the proximity of their performances as the manifestation of an ethical confusion or as the common research for a new sense of the common and a revived understanding of politics as a conflict of worlds?

 

Sponsored by the Rhetoric Department. Co-sponsored by the Programs in Critical Theory and Global Urban Humanities, the International Consortium of Critical Theory, the Townsend Center, and the Departments of French, English, and Classics.