[Anthropgrad] Work-in-Progress Seminar - 19 June - Asha Varadharajan

[Sharon Komidar]

The Research School of Humanities presents,
 Work-in-Progress Seminar Series 

1- 2.30 pm, Friday 19 June, Theatrette, Old Canberra House

FROM BABEL TO COSMOPOLIS: RETHINKING POLITICAL ALLEGIANCE AND GLOBAL
OBLIGATION 

A/Professor Asha Varadharajan 

Associate Professor of English at Queen's University in Canada

 

The discourse of cosmopolitanism has been tied to liberal ideals of
autonomy, pluralism, social justice, and ethical responsibility in the
democratic state and civil society. Its distinctness, however, resides
in its delicate negotiation of the twin perils of parochialism and
universalism in the name of "the moral community" of humanity and in its
insistence that the phrase "cosmopolitan patriot" is not an oxymoron.

These aspects of cosmopolitanism make it compatible with Étienne
Balibar's recent reflections on the state of the democratic
socio-political order. In this seminar Asha Varadharajan will discuss
Balibar's writings in conversation with the discourse of
cosmopolitanism, using Balibar's notion of "civility" as a crucial point
of connection. 

For more information please go to
http://rsh.anu.edu.au/events/seminars_forum_2009/wip/wip.php

Asha Varadharajan is Associate Professor of English at Queen's
University in Canada. She is the author of Exotic Parodies: Subjectivity
in Adorno, Said, and Spivak (Minnesota 1995). She is currently at work
on two books, Violence and Civility in the New World Order and
Enchantment and Deracination: The Lure of Foreignness in Contemporary
Cinema. Her writing and research encompass the biopolitics of
citizenship, the globalization of culture, the conjunction of religion
and violence, and the politics of representation in media and visual
cultures.

Convenors: Ken Taylor and Stephen Foster
For general enquiries please contact: 
Phone: 6125 2434
Email: administration.rsh at anu.edu.au 
Web: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/
All Welcome