Colloquia & Public Events
Colloquia Series
2023-24
OCTOBER 5
White Hall 112 - 4:00 pm
Vincent Lloyd (Villanova University)
NOVEMBER 9
Atwood Chemistry 240 - 4:00 pm
David Morris (Concordia University)
"The Life and Times of Phenomenology: Radical Reflection, through the Transcendental, to the Life-World, the Quasi-transcendental, and the Hyper-transcendental"
MARCH 7
Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern University)
"Misknowing and Flat Stories"
William F. Edwards Lecture
"Feeling Myself: Self-Awareness and Objectification" by Ellie Anderson of Pomona College will take place March 21, 2024 at 4:00 pm in White Hall 206 on Emory's campus.
It's no secret that we live in a society that encourages self-obsession. We're encouraged to train our selfie cameras on our faces, fiddle with cover letters to give off the most flattering impression of ourselves, and self-optimize by tracking our daily steps. I argue not that the problem with all this is that it's encouraging us to focus on ourselves too much; instead, the problem is that it's substituting complex, challenging, and responsible forms of relating to ourselves with ones that reduce us to images or things. I argue that emphasizing bodily and felt forms of self-awareness is an important step toward overcoming self-obsession in favor of self-cultivation, drawing on existential phenomenology and feminist theory.
APRIL 18
Atwood Chemistry 316 - 4:00 pm
Valerie Tiberius (University of Minnesota)
"Happy Immoralists and Perspectives on the Prudential Good"
Can a morally bad person live well? This is an ancient question that still divides people. I offer a diagnosis of the long-standing debate between those who answer “no” (moralists about well-being) and those who answer “yes” (subjectivists about well-being). I suggest that the reason people are divided about this question is that the opposing answers represent two different perspectives on well-being that answer to two different sets of practical interests. Given this diagnosis, the cure is to acknowledge the importance of both perspectives. I argue for a way of doing this that preserves an important subjective sense of well-being.
A celebration of Prof. Cindy Willett’s book Uproarious: How Feminist Comics and Other Subversives Speak Truth will include a discussion on the book, humor, ridicule, and politics with guest speakers Dr. Luvell Anderson from Syracuse University and our own Prof. Marta Jimenez. The event will take place on Thursday, January 19 from 4:00-6:30pm in 112 Whitehall.
From the University of Minnesota Press:
Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro.
2023 Colloquia Series - Cindy Willett flyer
William F. Edwards Lecture
"What is 'Disability' For?" by Joel Michael Reynoldsof the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University will take place October 27, 2022 at 4:15pm in Convocation Hall on Emory's campus.
Disability is an everyday concept, and everyone thinks they have a grasp on what it means. But clearly defining "disability" proves exceptionally difficult. Some claim it's impossible, for the concept simply isn't coherent. What if instead of asking how to define the concept of disability, we ask what it is for? I explore a pragmatic theory of disability and argue that such an approach is better suited for the ends of not just disabled people, but everyone from medical professionals to activists to human rights lawyers.
2022 Edwards Lecture flyer - "What is Disability for?"
Emory University Symposium for Psychoanalysis and Politics
SPAP will take place October 20-22, 2022 at the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute, though you may also attend via Zoom by emailing emorySPAP@gmail.com for the Zoom link. SPAP is bringing together a range of scholars to discuss the relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. Over the course of three days, the Symposium’s participants will deliver and discuss presentations on a variety of thinkers, such as Lacan, Marx, Fanon, Althusser, Freud, Jung, Hegel, Kant, Irigaray, Anzaldùa, and
many others.