Alexander Lecture by Prof. Judith Butler – Public Assembly and Plural Action

11 Feb 2014 - 16:30 / 11 Feb 2014 - 18:30

University College
15 King’s College Circle
Toronto

Prof. Judith Butler
Department of Rhetoric; Comparative Literature
University of California at Berkeley
Public Assembly and Plural Action

Abstract: How do we understand the role of public assemblies in the making of the “people”? Although one ideal of democratic life is for all of the people to be fairly and justly represented, it is also true that public gatherings, or the exercise of freedom of assembly, can be a way in which the people constitute themselves provisionally, and sometimes experimentally. How do we understand “the people” as those whose fair and just representation is a precondition of any state’s legitimacy at the same time that we allow for new versions of “the people” to be produced by public assemblies? Assemblies involve plural and corporeal forms of action which sometimes signify in ways that are not directly translated into a set of verbal or written “demands.” How do we think about those embodied forms of democratic action that mark the distance between state power and popular sovereignty?

February 11, 2014 4:30 p.m.
University College
15 King’s College Circle, Toronto
East Hall

Faculty, students, staff, and the public are cordially invited.
No registration necessary. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
For more information www.uc.utoronto.ca/alexander2014 | uc.rsvp@utoronto.ca