“Ethical Subjects” has explored the relationship between law and morality, within the framework of the nation-state and beyond it. Taking the figure of Antigone as a point of departure, we have investigated how and when ethical norms coincide and conflict with laws. We have analyzed the mobilization of such conflicts to bring about legal transformations from the abolition of slavery and the deployment of “crimes against humanity” in international law to the ethics of non-violence and contemporary legal discussions of refugee asylum and amnesty. In joining together “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, we have explored the problems posed– and perspectives opened– when bodies, ideas, capital, and social movements cross and transcend borders.
“Ethical Subjects, Now!” marks the conclusion of our two-year cycle of events and we hope opens onto future considerations of “ethical subjects” as a humanistic analytic framework that is deeply engaged in present day problems in ways that are informed by an understanding of the past.
The symposium is open to the public.
Ethical Subjects, Now!
Thursday, May 4, 2017
Welcome and Introduction, 2:00-2:15
Refuge and Sanctuary, 2:15-4:15
Ilana Feldman (Anthropology, George Washington University), "Livable Lives in a World in Crisis: The Refugee as a Political Figure for Our Time"
Commentator: Linda Bosniak (Law, Rutgers)
Keynote, 4:30-6:00
Reception, 6:00-7:00
Friday, May 5, 2017
Breakfast, 9:30-10:00
The International and the Human, 10:00-12:00
Philippa Hetherington(Slavic Studies, University College London), "Circulating Subjects in the Archives of Humanitarianism: Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams and the Fin-de-Siecle Traffic in Women Betwen Odessa and Istanbul"
Bertrand Taithe (History, University of Manchester), "Shaping the Future and the Past of Humanitarianism:
Commentator: Miriam Ticktin (Anthropology, The New School)
Lunch, 12:00-1:00
The Politics of Minority, 1:15-3:00
Commentator: Maya Mikdashi (Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers)
Coffee, 3:00-3:15
Archive/Affect, 3:15pm—5:15pm
Anjali Arondekar (Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz), "Make.Believe: Sexuality's Subjects"
Parama Roy (English, University of California, Davis), "On Being Eaten"
Commentator: Marisa Fuentes (History/Women's Studies, Rutgers)