The New School, Institute for Critical Social Inquiry
Distinguished Public Lecture Series featuring Dipesh Chakrabarty (in conversation with Jay Bernstein), Hortense Spillers (in conversation with Patricia J. Williams), and Noam Chomsky (in conversation with Nancy Fraser)
June 8-10, 2021
All lectures will begin at 6pm EST
Online via Zoom, register here
Please note that registration is limited and you may be placed on a waitlist
Dipesh Chakrabarty
The Anthropocene and Historical Time: Some Notes on the Present
June 8, 2021
This lecture will discuss some of the problems that the Anthropocene hypothesis—the proposition that humans are now a geological force affecting the chronology of the geobiological history of the whole planet—poses for humanists when they examine recent human pasts while trying to take that perspective on board. The lecture will also offer some thoughts on conceptualizing historical time in that context. Jay Bernstein will serve as respondent.
Hortense Spillers
Afro Pessimism and Its Others
June 9, 2021
Afropessism is one of the leading paradigms of thought in contemporary Africa-American inquiry; in fact, it would appear that in its pervasiveness, it names and comprehends thought movements in this field that run at odds with its own assumptions; this lecture aims to advance a few beginning observations of this mode of interrogation in the interest of taking a systematic look at Afropessimism and some of its conceptual predecessors. Patricia J. Williams will serve as respondent.
Noam Chomsky
Confluence of Challenges: The Fate of the Human Experiment
June 10, 2021
We live at a moment of extraordinary challenges, unique in human history: environmental catastrophe, nuclear war, new pandemics, all too many others. Crucially, for each imminent crisis we know of feasible solutions, which can lead to a better world. What we do not know is whether humans, who have the fate of the world in their hands, have the moral and intellectual capacity to rise to the challenge and do what must be done. And soon. There can be no delay. If they fail, the human experiment will be heading inexorably towards an inglorious end, bringing down much else with it. Nancy Fraser will serve as respondent.