2015 Research Seminars

'I think, therefore I belong' – Meditations on Minorities and Philosophy

Wednesday October 14, 2015, 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm
Bankstown campus, Building 3, room 3.G.27. All welcome.

Abstract
In recent years philosophy faculty and students from the US, UK and South Africa have launched initiatives to highlight the situation of underrepresented groups in the humanities (in general) and professional philosophy (in particular). The most notable examples include MAP (Minorities and Philosophy); Rhodes Must Fall; Why is my Curriculum White?; Dismantling the Master's House; and distinctive measures taken by the APA to improve the status of women and blacks in philosophy. The issues addressed include historical and canonical exclusion, structural inequality, systemic prejudice, unconscious bias and methodological concerns. With reference to the work begun by Australia's first (and so far only) MAP chapter (USyd), I first identify problems of representation, participation and linguistic injustice; I highlight the need for institutional change and an intersectional approach to overcoming obstacles faced by minorities in philosophy. I then address the importance of inclusion in the context of the history of philosophy and exclusion as it pertains to the practice of philosophy. 1) Drawing on the insights of philosophers such as Tina Fernandes Botts, Linda Martín Alcoff, George Yancy and Nathaniel Tobias Coleman, I acknowledge the work of African American thinkers and activists from the 19th and early 20th century and foreground their place in the American philosophical tradition. Based on this study, I discuss the ethical significance and philosophical benefits of inclusive practices – systematic procedures that involve acknowledging marginalised people, their voices and unique contributions to philosophical debates and topics (in addition to social, cultural and political transformation). 2) By evaluating the assumptions held about intuitions and the details used to construct thought experiments, I demonstrate how philosophical methods can exclude and inhibit based on gender, race/ethnicity, class, ability, sexual identity, etc. I critically analyse Bernard Williams' widely used 'Jim and the Indians' thought experiment in order to expose the unintended discrimination practiced when introducing students to philosophy. Finally, I suggest potential strategies for best practice in philosophy with a focus on displaced people.

Bio 
Dr. Omid Tofighian is Research Assistant for an ARC funded project headed by Prof. Rick Benitez (USyd) and Honorary Associate in the Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney. He completed his PhD in Philosophy at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and graduated with a combined honours degree in Philosophy and Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney. Over the past ten years he has lived variously in the UAE where he taught at Abu Dhabi University; Belgium where he was a visiting scholar at K.U. Leuven; the Netherlands for his PhD; and intermittent periods in Iran for research. His current roles include teaching/researching at the University of Sydney and Western Sydney University; committee member for MAP (Minorities and Philosophy) Sydney Chapter; faculty at Iran Academia; and member of the Religion, State and Society Network (headed by Assoc. Prof. Lily Rahim [USyd]). He contributes to community arts and cultural projects and works with asylum seekers, refugees and young people from Western Sydney.

Wednesday September 9, 2015, 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm
Bankstown campus, Building 3, room 3.G.27. All welcome.

Abstract
In this talk I propose that a consistent and historic function of human rights is to inspire individuals to a new way of life. I have two aims. First, to demonstrate that throughout the human rights tradition is a belief that human rights are an indispensable means to work upon and improve the self. And second, to identify a few of the concrete techniques prescribed in human rights law and literature to effect this transformation. My goal is to sketch a new theory and history of human rights from the perspective of a care for one's own self.

Bio
Alex Lefebvre (opens in a new window) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations, and the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Sydney. He is author of (Human Rights as a Way of Life: on Bergson's Political Philosophy (Stanford, 2013) and The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza (Stanford 2008). He is currently working on a book titled Human Rights and the Care of the Self.

Wednesday 19 August, 2015, 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm
University of Western Sydney, Room 3.G.27, Bankstown Campus

Abstract
"As we know, the revolutionary problem today is to find some unity in our various struggles without falling back on the despotic and bureaucratic organization of the party or State apparatus" (Deleuze, Desert Islands, p. 259). This remark, offered by Gilles Deleuze some four decades ago, arguably remains as true today as it ever was. But what are we to do with this problem? How are we to identify a reality contrary to the status quo and actualise it without falling prey to the 'revolutionary problem' that plagues so many attempts? Drawing principally from the work of Deleuze, which has been used at times to support theories of anarchism/post-anarchism and organised resistance, this paper will suggest an alternative response to the 'revolutionary problem' that might be referred to as prudential experimentation.
 
Bio
Craig Lundy (opens in a new window) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. He is the author of History and Becoming: Deleuze's Philosophy of Creativity (2012), (Deleuze's Bergsonism: A Critical Introduction and Guide (forthcoming) and co-editor with Daniela Voss of At the Edges of Thought: Deleuze and Post-Kantian Philosophy (2015), all published by Edinburgh University Press.

Wednesday 12 August, 2015, 3.00 pm - 4.30 pm
Bankstown Campus, Room 3.G.27

Abstract
In this talk I cast Jacques Rancière's oeuvre within the tradition of sentimental literature in order to get at his unique articulation of the relation between aesthetic realism and democratic participation. The talk will focus on some of Rancière's recent writings, especially some select scenes from Aisthesis, and will offer an account of Rancière's notion of the "farniente of reverie" (quite literally, the "do-nothing of dreaming") as the mode of political participation of the no-part, that odd form of political subjectivity that is the actant in Rancière's aesthetics of politics.

Bio
Davide Panagia (opens in a new window) is Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA and Co-Editor of Theory& Event. Prior to coming to UCLA he held the position of Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at Trent University, Canada. He is a political and cultural theorist whose work specializes in the relationship between aesthetics and politics, with an ongoing curiosity about the diverse ways in which the sensation of value is generated and assembled in political societies. Along with numerous articles in political theory, cultural aesthetics, and film and media studies, his monograph publications include The Poetics of Political Thinking (Duke, 2006), The Political Life of Sensation (Duke, 2009), and Impressions of Hume: Cinematic Thinking and the Politics of Discontinuity (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

Wednesday 20 May, 2015, 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm
Bankstown Campus, Room 3.G.27 

Abstract
Can movies 'do ethics'? Some of the most innovative philosophical engagement with cinema and ethics has come from phenomenological and cognitivist perspectives in film theory. This trend reflects a welcome re-engagement with cinema as a medium with the potential for ethical transformation, that is, with the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience. This challenges the sceptical view according to which cinema's power of affective and emotional engagement reproduces ideological biases through viewer manipulation. My paper explores the phenomenological turn in film theory (with its focus on affective, empathic, and embodied responses to cinema), emphasizing the ethical implications of phenomenological approaches to affect and empathy, emotion and evaluation, care and responsibility. The oft-criticised 'subjectivism' of phenomenology, I argue, can be supplemented by recent cognitivist approaches that highlight the complex forms of affective response, emotional engagement, and moral allegiance at work in our experience of moving images. At the same time, the cognitivist temptation towards reductionism or inadequate accounts of aesthetic experience can be avoided by way of 'thick' phenomenological description and hermeneutic interpretation. I explore this exciting crossover between phenomenological and cognitivist approaches in regard to recent films that have attracted critical attention from both perspectives. My claim is that an 'empathic ethics' is at work in many films: film provides a powerful means of enacting the affective temporal dynamic between empathy and sympathy, emotional engagement and multiple perspective-taking. Taken together, these elements of cinematic ethics offer experientially rich, context-sensitive, and ethically singular forms of imaginative engagement in social situations that reveal the complexities of a cultural-historical world. I elaborate this thesis by analysing a key sequence from Ashgar Farhadi's A Separation (2011), a film that offers a striking case study in cinematic ethics.

Bio
 Robert Sinnerbrink is Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is the author of New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images (Continuum, 2011), Understanding Hegelianism (Acumen, 2007), and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Film-Philosophy. He has published numerous articles on the relationship between film and philosophy in journals such as Angelaki, Film-Philosophy, Necsus: European Journal of Media Studies, Screen, and Screening the Past. He is currently completing a book entitled Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film (Routledge, 2015).

Wednesday 22 April, 2015, 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm
Bankstown Campus, Room 3.G.27 

Abstract
Democratic theory often makes appeal to the will of the people. But what exactly is this will? Individual humans in a society each have their own will; how and under what conditions can the multiple individual wills be combined to form a single collective will? In this paper, I interrogate the answer to these questions provided by Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes is a polemically anti-democratic thinker, but nonetheless I will argue that there are lessons in his analysis for contemporary democratic theory. First, a caution for those wishing to claim to speak in the voice of the people; and second, a caution for those hoping to find a spontaneous democratic tendency in the power of the multitude.
 
Bio
Dr Sandra Field (opens in a new window) is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College.  Her research focusses on early modern political philosophy (especially Hobbes and Spinoza), and how it connects with contemporary political theory.  Her papers have appeared in the journals such as Theoria and Journal of History of Philosophy.

Wednesday 11 March, 3.30pm - 5.00pm
Bankstown Campus, Room 3.G.27
Abstract
In this paper, I argue that Nietzsche employs dance to overcome what he sees as his own decadence. I begin by examining the ancient Greek term mousikê and explain its importance for Nietzsche. Music is not only able to overcome logos but allows us to transform ourselves. As such, it allows us to "understand" in a deeper way and provides an important tool for overcoming decadence (which I interpret in a musical sense, namely, falling out of rhythm). Nietzsche's goal of becoming a good dancer is to be able to say "Yes and Amen" to life
 
Biography
Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson (opens in a new window) is the Executive Director of the Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology. He is the author or editor of eleven books, among them Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music, and Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the New School, a Guest Lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, a Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven, and Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University. Dr. Benson has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Fulbright Fellowship, a Belgian-American Fellowship, and the Junior Faculty Achievement Award (for outstanding teaching) and the Senior Scholar Achievement Award during his time at Wheaton College, where he taught for twenty-two years.