Events
Cosponsor
- Institute for Comparative Literature and Society

The Political Concepts conference returns to the Columbia University. The project is guided by one formal principle--the posing of a Socratic question "what is x?"--and by one theatrical principle--the concepts defined should be relevant to political thought and, more broadly, to thinking about the political.
Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon is a multidisciplinary, web-based journal that seeks to be a forum for engaged scholarship. Each lexical entry will focus on a single concept with the express intention of resituating it in the field of political discourse by addressing what has remained unquestioned or unthought in that concept. Each entry will serve as a short defining essay for a concept. Through their argumentative strategies and employment of the concept in question, entries will aim to reconfigure a concept, rather than take for granted the generally accepted definitions of that concept or the conclusions that follow from them.
Political Concepts does not predetermine what does or does not count as a political concept. Our aim is to expand the scope of what demands political accounting, and for this reason we welcome essays that fashion new political concepts or demonstrate how concepts deserve to be taken as politically significant. It is our view that “politics” refers to the multiplicity of forces, structures, problems, and orientations that shape our collective life. Politics enters the frame wherever our lives together are staked and wherever collective action could make a difference to the outcome. As no discipline possesses an hegemony over this critical space, we welcome submissions from all fields of study.
We consider Political Concepts to be “a critical lexicon” because each contribution resituates a particular aspect of political meaning, thereby opening pathways for another future—one that is not already determined and ill-fated. The term “critical” in our title is also meant quite literally: Political Concepts is a forum for conversation and constructive debate rather than the construction of an encyclopedic ideal.
Program
time8:50am - 9:00am EST
Welcome and Arrival
time9:00am - 10:30am EST
Panel I
Exodus
Lydia Goehr
Professor of Philosophy
Columbia University
Resistance
Rebecca Comay
Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature
University of Toronto
Moderator
Adi Ophir
Professor at The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas
Tel Aviv University
time10:30am - 10:45am EST
Break I
time10:45am - 12:15pm EST
Panel II
Legitimacy
Andrew Arato
Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory
The New School for Social Research
Crisis
Nadia Urbinati
Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies
Columbia University
Moderator
Andreas Kalyvas
Associate Professor of Political Science
New School for Social Research
time12:15pm - 1:45pm EST
Break II
time2:00pm - 3:00pm EST
Panel III
Normal
Hagar Kotef
Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Comparative Politics
SOAS, University of London
Innocence
Miriam Ticktin
Associate Professor of Anthropology
The New School for Social Research
Moderator
Ann Stoler
Willy Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies
The New School for Social Research
time3:25pm - 4:00pm EST
Break III
time4:00pm - 5:30pm EST
Panel IV
Singularity
Samuel Weber
Avalon Professor of Humanities
Northwestern University
Interference
Emily Apter
Professor of French and Comparative Literature
New York University
Moderator
Stathis Gourgouris
Professor
Columbia University
time10:20am - 10:30am EST
Welcome
time10:30am - 12:00pm EST
Panel I
Amnesty
Maxim Pensky
Chair of the Department of Philosophy
State University of New York--Binghamton
Infrapolitics
Alberto Moreiras
Professor
Texas A & M University
Moderator
Jay Bernstein
University Distinguished Professor
The New School
time12:00pm - 1:45pm EST
Break I
time2:00pm - 3:30pm EST
Panel II
Free Indirect
Timothy Bewes
Professor of English
Brown University
Grandeur
Jason Frank
Associate Professor
Cornell University
Moderator
Bonnie Honig
Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science
Brown University
time4:00pm - 5:30pm EST
Panel III
Whiteness
Linda Martín Alcoff
Professor of Philosophy
Hunter College
Comedy
Dmitri Nikulin
Professor of Philosophy
New School for Social Research
Moderator
Akeel Bilgrami
Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy
Columbia University
Participants
- Linda Martín Alcoff Professor of Philosophy Hunter College
- Emily Apter Professor of French and Comparative Literature New York University
- Andrew Arato Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory The New School for Social Research
- Jane Bennett Professor Johns Hopkins University
- Timothy Bewes Professor of English Brown University
- Rebecca Comay Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature University of Toronto
- Jason Frank Associate Professor Cornell University
- Lydia Goehr Professor of Philosophy Columbia University
- Stathis Gourgouris Professor Columbia University
- Bernard E. Harcourt Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Director, Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought Columbia University
- Hagar Kotef Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Comparative Politics SOAS, University of London
- Jacques Lezra Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature New York University
- Alberto Moreiras Professor Texas A & M University
- Dmitri Nikulin Professor of Philosophy New School for Social Research
- Maxim Pensky Chair of the Department of Philosophy State University of New York--Binghamton
- Miriam Ticktin Associate Professor of Anthropology The New School for Social Research
- Nadia Urbinati Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies Columbia University
- Samuel Weber Avalon Professor of Humanities Northwestern University