16th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory
Princeton University
April 19-20, 2024
301 Laura Wooten Hall

Friday, April 19, 2024

**All sessions will take place in Wooten Hall, Room 301**

9-9:30 am Catered Breakfast & Coffee

9:30-10:45 am
Eero Arum, UC Berkeley

“Machiavelli Against Sovereignty: Emergency Powers and the Decemvirate”

Chair: Melissa Lane. Discussant: Sal Salamanca.

11 am-12:15 pm
Alberto Alcaraz, Brown University

“Reality Checking and Democracy: Reflections on Contemporary World Alienation”
Chair: Alan Patten. Discussant: Chelsea Guo.

12:15-1:30 pm Catered Lunch

1:30-2:45 pm
Paulina Siemieniec, Queen’s University
“Animal Care as Political Access: An Accessible Model of Animal Politics”
Chair: Annie Stilz. Discussant: Mollie Eisner.

2:45-4:30 pm Break

4:30-6 pm
Madhav Khosla, Columbia University
Keynote Lecture
Chair: Jo Wilson. 

6:30-8:30 pm Conference Dinner at Winberie's

Saturday, April 20, 2024

**All sessions will take place in Wooten Hall, Room 301**

9:30-10am Catered Breakfast & Coffee

10-11:15 am
Michael Mirer, UCLA
“On Enemy Land: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Abolitionist Solidarity, and Organizing”
Chair: Ed Baring. Discussant: Claudia Cervantes Perez.

11:30am-12:45 pm
Alexis Bibeau, University of Virginia
“Property Destruction During Protests: What Is It and Can It Be Justified?”
Chair: Temi Ogunye. Discussant: Andrew Hahm.

12:45-1:30 pm Catered Lunch
1:30-2:45 pm
Hugo Till, Oxford University
“Social Media as Private Government”
Chair: Steve Macedo. Discussant: Atticus Carnell.

15th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory
Princeton University
April 28-29, 2023
301 Laura Wooten Hall

Friday, April 28, 2023

9:00am – 9:30am
Breakfast and welcome from organizers

9:30am – 10:50am
“The Concept of Freedom in Ancient Chinese Political Thought: Mencius’s Theory of the
State”
Author: Leland Stange, Yale University
Chair: Melissa Lane, Department of Politics and the Center for Human Values, Princeton
Comments: Sal Salamanca

11:00am – 12:20pm
“Democracy without Borders”
Authors: Joseph Warren and Kristin Zuhone, UC Berkeley
Chair: Charles Beitz, Department of Politics, Princeton
Comments: Jose Sanchez

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Lunch

1:30pm – 2:50pm
“Nature in Native American Political Thinking”
Author: Samuel Piccolo, University of Notre Dame
Chair: Anna Stilz, Department of Politics and the Center for Human Values, Princeton
Comments: Simmi Dhillon

4:30pm – 6:00pm
“Crowd Power: Proximity and Politics”
Keynote: Daniela Cammack, Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley
Abstract: What difference does regular proximity to large numbers of fellow citizens make to democratic politics? Many people dislike—even fear—crowds, but gathering physically may help to foster solidarity in a way significant for democracy. Drawing on a variety of ancient Greek sources, I suggest that being among large numbers of co-actors when deciding on collective actions is valuable because it tells us something about the feasibility of rival plans, thus allowing us to commit to one unanimously. That effect is particularly supported by public mass majoritarianism and helps to explain why that procedure has historically seemed attractive to decision-making groups, including outvoted minorities. Two conditions are important. Open mass meetings must be routine and empowered, as they were in ancient Greece and Rome, rather than ad hoc and purely remonstrative or laudatory, as they typically are in modern democracies. And assemblies must retain the power to convene themselves, as they did in ancient Greek democracies, rather than be convened by elected officials, as they were in the Roman Republic. Absent those conditions, proximity becomes hitched to populism in a way that remains debilitating today. 

6:30pm – 8:30pm
Dinner for participants and invited guests

Saturday, April 29, 2023

9:00am – 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am – 10:50am
“Rawls, Hope, Theodicy, Liberalism”
Author: Connor Grubaugh, University of Oxford
Chair: Eric Gregory, Department of Religion, Princeton
Comments: Elly Long

11:00am – 12:20pm
“Cities, Infrastructure, and the Production of Livability in the Global Age”
Author: Tatiana Pignon, University of Cambridge
Chair: Jay Cephas, School of Architecture, Princeton
Comments: Claudia Cervantes-Perez

12:20pm – 1:20pm
Lunch

1:30pm – 2:50pm
“Aimé Césaire’s ‘Tropical Marxism’ and the Problem of Alienation”
Author: Arwa Awan, University of Chicago
Chair: Ed Baring, Department of History and the Center for Human Values, Princeton
Comments: Kritika Vohra

14^thAnnual Graduate Conference
in Political Theory 

Venue: Marx Hall 301 

Friday, May 6, 2022

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast & welcome from organizers

9:30am - 10:45am
“‘Migration and Border Practices: A Pragmatist Approach" (Samuel Chan, UC Berkeley)
Chair: Dan-el Padilla Peralta | Discussant: Elaine Yim 

10:55am - 12:10pm
“Common Ownership and Global Commons: On What We Owe" (Pablo Zambrano, University of Oxford) 
Chair: Jan-Werner Müller | Discussant: Sal Salamanca 

12:10pm - 1:10pm
Lunch

1:15pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: "Life's Prime Want?: A critique of some contemporary thinking about work, freedom and income"  (Alex Gourevitch, Brown University) 
Chair: Max Ridge 

Abstract: It was once standard to understand socialism as a regime of freedom because it was based on shared labor. That work was necessary did not mean it was for that reason unfree. The contemporary Left is captured by an alternative ‘post-work’ vision, in which emancipation is equated with being freed not just from work but from the work society itself. Policies like a ‘Universal Basic Income’ are now supposed to ground an emancipatory vision of a society in which nobody is forced to work. Promoting a UBI is supposed to re-ignite left-wing politics by guiding the political imagination towards the attractions of a post-work utopia. Unfortunately, this vision is grounded in a series of deceptions or evasions about why some labor is necessary. The result is that post-work arguments end up presupposing the very labor from which they claim to want to free us. These deceptions are both an intellectual and political liability. Intellectually, they leave the Left without the ability to properly describe, let alone theorize, the problems that any serious socialist project has to face. The core question is about how to define, organize and distribute necessary labor in a way consistent with human freedom. Politically, post-work proponents of a UBI are left unable to see what is utterly reasonable, even valuable, about popular attachments to work. They end up representing socialist views about work and freedom as far more marginal and at odds with widespread views than they need or ought to be. In many ways, the public tacitly understands, better than UBI proponents, the need for some formal organization of necessary labor.

2:30pm - 2:45pm
Coffee break

2:45pm - 4:00pm
"Gamesmanship: A Conceptual and Moral Analysis" (Brian Palmiter, Harvard University) 
Chair: Charles Beitz | Discussant: Atticus Carnell 

4:10pm - 5:25pm
"Fear and Misery of Democracy: On the Political Realism of Judith N. Shklar" (Amadeus Ulrich, Goethe University Frankfurt)
Chair: Jan-Werner Müller | Discussant: Elly Brown 

6:00pm - 8:00pm
Dinner in Palmer Square 

 

Saturday, May 7, 2022

8:45am - 9:15am
Breakfast 

9:15am - 10:30am
“‘The Abstraction of Racisms, the Racism of Abstraction: On the Limits of Liberal Political Theory's Analysis of Race" (Benjamin Taylor, Johns Hopkins University)
Chair: Pratap Bhanu Mehta | Discussant: Gaby Nair

10:40am - 11:55am
“‘Legal Recognition of Families in a Liberal State: A Claim for Equal Recognition of Unconventional Families" (Francesca Miccoli, University of Milan)
Chair: Steve Macedo | Discussant: Ophelia Vedder 

11:55pm - 12:55pm
Lunch

1pm - 2:15pm
“‘Theory as Translation: Gramsci's Reading of Machiavelli" (Ewa Nizalowska, Cornell University) 
Chair: Edward Baring | Discussant: Utku Cansu 

2:25pm - 3:40pm
“‘On the Possibility of Right Answers in Politics" (Matthew Draper, UC San Diego) 
Chair: Ian Walling | Discussant: Jose Sanchez 

13th Annual Graduate Conference
in Political Theory

Thursday, April 22, 2021

4:30pm-5:00pm 

Opening (Welcome from organizers)

 

5:00pm-6:20pm 

"What Sophie Sees: The Intersection of Family and Property in Rousseau's Emile" (Abbie LeBlanc, McGill University)

Chair: Melissa Lane | Discussant: Ophelia Vedder

 

Friday, April 23, 2021

9:30am-10:50am

"Land Ownership and the Rise of the New Capitalist Regime in Du Bois's Thought" (Lawrence Svabek, University of Chicago)

Chair: Stephen Macedo | Discussant: Darius Weil

 

11:00am-12:20pm

"Social Equality and the Conditional Justifiability of Political Inequality" (Takuto Kobayashi, Waseda University) 

Chair: Charles Beitz | Discussant: Andrew Hahm

 

12:30pm-1:30pm

Lunch

 

1:30pm-2:50pm

"Incompletely Theorized Voting" (Jan–Paul Sandmann, Harvard University)

Chair: Anna Stilz | Discussant: Gabriel Karger

 

3:00pm-4:30pm 

Keynote Address (Desmond Jagmohan, University of California, Berkeley)

 

Saturday, April 24, 2021

9:30am-10:50am 

"What Constitutes Equality in a Context of Punishment? Deciphering the Hidden Calculus in Kant" (Shirley Le Penne, Cornell University)

Chair: Alexander Englert | Discussant: Eli Scharlatt Davey

 

11:00am-12:20pm

"Marxism's Interwar Moment, 1917-1933 (Nicholas Devlin, Cambridge University)

Chair: Edward Baring | Discussant: Peter Giraudo

 

12:30pm-1:30pm

Lunch

 

1:30pm-2:50pm

"The Problem of Low Expectations and the Principled Politician" (Samuel Schmitt, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Chair: Jan-Werner Müller | Discussant: Nikhil Menezes

12th Annual Graduate Conference
in Political Theory 

Venue: Marx Hall 301 

Friday, April 12, 2019

9:00am – 9:30am
Breakfast & Welcome from organizers

9:30am - 10:50am
“The Value of Choice Under Social Norms” (Elsa Kugelberg, LSE)
Chair: Charles Beitz | Discussant: Shuk-Ying Chan

11:00am – 12:20pm
“The Constant Companion of Virtue: Kantian Honor and Its Implications for the Fight Against Disrespect” (Antong Liu, Duke University)
Chair: Alan Patten | Discussant: Peter Giraudo

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Lunch

1:30pm – 2:50pm
“Partnership: Private Law and Political Theory in Rabbinic Laws of Neighbors” (Benjamin Schvarcz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Chair: Melissa Lane | Discussant: Sonny Kim

3:00pm – 4:30pm
Keynote Address: “Property-Owning Democracy and the Limited State: John Rawls and Postwar Politics” (Katrina Forrester, Harvard University)
Chair: Jade Ngo

Abstract: This paper explores the political origins of John Rawls's liberal theory. It situates his early unpublished writings about the nature of society and the state within debates in postwar America about the limits of state intervention. In doing so, it recasts our understanding of Rawls’s vision of property-owning democracy, by showing its ties to his account of the limited state. This has broader implications for imagining alternatives to the welfare state, for understanding the place of the state in liberal egalitarianism, and for writing the history of twentieth-century liberal thought.

5:30pm – 7:30pm
Dinner for participants and invited guests

Saturday, April 13, 2019

9:00am – 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am – 10:50am
"What is Political Imagination?" (Avshalom Schwartz, Stanford University)
Chair: Gregory Conti | Discussant: Jade Ngo

11:00am – 12:20pm
“Parsing the Meaning of Legislative Assemblies” (Arina Cocoru, NYU)
Chair: Gregory Conti | Discussant: Théophile Deslauriers

12:20pm – 1:20pm 
Lunch 

1:30pm – 2:50pm 
“Countering White Revanchism: Whitman and the Dilemmas of Social Criticism” (Lisa Gilson, Cambridge University)
Chair: Anuja Bose | Discussant: Dongxian Jiang

11th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Venue: Marx Hall 301

Friday, April 13, 2018

 

12:00pm - 1:15pm
Lunch & Welcome from organizers

 

1:15pm - 2:30pm
“Redefining "Schumpeterianism"” (Natasha Piano, University of Chicago)

Chair: Alan Patten| Discussant: Gabriel Levine

2:45pm – 4:00pm
"Understanding Judith Butler’s ontology of precariousness as an effective solution to the “normative lack” of radical democracy theories" (Lucile Richard, Science Po Paris / CEVIPOF)
Chair: Jan-Werner Müller | Discussant: Théophile Deslauriers

 

4:15pm – 4:30pm
Reception*

 

4:30pm – 6:00pm
Roundtable Discussion, “Democracy and Dissent in China and India”*
Sunil Khilnani (King’s College London, Visiting Professor at Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies)
John Dunn (University of Cambridge)
Chair: Dongxian Jiang

6:30pm – 8:30pm
Dinner on Nassau St (by invitation)

Saturday, April 14, 2018

 

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

 

9:30am – 10:45am
"Fair Play, White Privilege, and Black Reparations" (Joseph Frigault, Boston University)
Chair: Desmond Jagmohan | Discussant: Shuk-Ying Chan

 

11:00am - 12:15pm
“Republican Authority: Harrington's Theory of Political Legitimacy” (Cody Trojan, UCLA)
Chair: Melissa Lane | Discussant: René de Nicolay

 

12:15pm - 1:30pm 
Lunch

1:30 - 2:45

Keynote Address:

"Psychoanalysis, Critique, and Emancipation" (Amy Allen, Penn State University)

Chair: Shuk-Ying Chan

 

Abstract: Critical theorists from Herbert Marcuse to Jurgen Habermas to Axel Honneth have relied on an analogy between critique or critical theory and psychoanalysis. The idea behind this analogy is that just as psychoanalysis is a diagnosis of individual pathologies that can lead to some sort of cure, critique or critical theory is a diagnosis of social pathologies that can lead to some sort of emancipation. The lecture will reconstruct the way this analogy works in contemporary critical theory, analyze the shortcomings of that approach, and briefly sketch an alternative.

 

2:45pm – 3:00pm
Coffee break

3:00pm - 4:15pm
"A Sensational Economy: Luxury, Art, and the Origins of the Factory" (Lucas Pinheiro, University of Chicago)
Chair: Inés Valdez | Discussant: Johan Trovik

 

4:15pm – 5:30pm
"Ideal and Systematic Theory" (Aaron Landau, Columbia University)
Chair: Johannes Kniess | Discussant: John Dilulio

10th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 21, 2017

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast & welcome from organizers

9:30am - 10:45am
“‘The Liberty to Know, To Utter, and To Argue’: Rethinking the Liberty of Conscience in John Milton’s Political Prose” (Amy Gais, Yale University)
Chair: Chloé Bakalar | Discussant: Paul Baumgardner

10:55am - 12:10pm
“Unrecoverable Intentions: A Skinnerian Reading of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Paradox of Intentionality” (Chungjae Lee, University of California, Irvine)
Chair: Sally Nuamah | Discussant: John DiIulio

12:10pm - 1:10pm
Lunch

1:15pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: "The Political Theory of Capitalism" (Corey Robin, Brooklyn College/CUNY)
Chair: Alex Ades

2:30pm - 2:45pm
Coffee break

2:45pm - 4:00pm
"A Free Lunch? Democratic Theory and Central Bank Independence" (Isak Tranvik, Duke University)
Chair: Melissa Lane | Discussant: Ardevan Yaghoubi

4:10pm - 5:25pm
"Must Rhodes Fall? The Significance of Commemorative Practices in the Struggle for Social Equality" (Johannes Schulz, University of Frankfurt)
Chair: Minh Ly | Discussant: Dongxian Jiang

6:00pm - 8:00pm
Dinner on Nassau St.

Saturday, April 22

9:15am - 9:45am
Breakfast

9:45am - 11:00am
"A Move Towards Global Distributive Justice: The Structure of Coercion & Cooperation" (Elizabeth Hupfer, Rice University)
Chair: Desmond Jagmohan | Discussant: Lucia Rafanelli

11:10am - 12:25pm
“Social Freedom and Its Value” (Harrison Frye, University of Virginia)
Chair: Stefan Eich | Discussant: Erin Miller

12:25pm 
Lunch & Farewell

9th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 15, 2016

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast & welcome from organizers

9:30am - 10:45am
"Global Legal Pluralism and the Territorial Principle" (Anna Jurkevics, Yale University)
Chair: Annie Stilz | Discussant: Lucia Rafanelli

10:55am - 12:10pm
"Tocqueville on Doubt and the Demands of Democratic Citizenship" (Alex Arellano, University of Texas)
Chair: Charles Beitz | Discussant: Alexander Ades

12:10pm - 12:25pm
Coffee

12:25pm - 1:25pm
Keynote address: "Absolving God's Law: Thomas Hobbes's Scriptural Politics" (Alison McQueen, Stanford University)
Chair: Isi Litke

1:30pm - 2:30pm
Lunch

2:30pm - 3:45pm
"Epistemic Authority and Evidentiary Standards" (Zeynep Pamuk, Harvard University)
Chair: Stephen Macedo | Discussant: Suzie Kim

4:00pm - 5:15pm
Princeton political theory graduate panel: Adam Kern, Shuk-Ying Chan, Johan Trovik
Chair: Gabrielle Girgis

Saturday, April 16

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am - 10:45am
"Edmund Burke and the Deliberative Sublime" (Rob Goodman, Columbia University)
Chair: Eva Hausteiner | Discussant: John DiIulio

10:55am - 12:10pm
"Death is a Drag: Queering Heidegger Towards an Existential Phenomenology" (Connor Steele, University of Ottawa)
Chair: TBD | Discussant: Isi Litke

12:10pm - 1:10pm
Lunch

1:10pm - 2:25pm
"What Is an Agent?: A Multidisciplinary, Post-Enlightenment Approach"
Chair: Kim Angell | Discussant: Benjamin Hofmann

8th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 10, 2015

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast & welcome from organizers

9:30am - 10:45am
"The Case Against Practice-Dependence" (Florian Ostmann, University College London)
Chair: Johann Frick | Discussant: Ted Lechterman

10:55am - 12:10pm
"The Structural Presence of the Unjust Past" (Alasia Nuti, University of Cambridge)
Chair: Jan-Werner Müller | Discussant: Isabella Litke

12:10pm - 1:10pm
Lunch

1:15pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: "Post-Representative Democracy" (Hélène Landemore, Yale University)
Chair: Isabella Litke

2:30pm - 2:45pm
Coffee break

2:45pm - 4:00pm
"Kant on Earth Citizenship" (Jakob Huber, London School of Economics)
Chair: Charles Beitz | Discussant: Benjamin Hofmann

4:10pm - 5:25pm
"Overcoming the Institutional Deficit of Agonistic Democracy" (Manon Westphal, University of Münster)
Chair: Andreas Schmidt | Discussant: Emilee Chapman

6:00pm - 8:00pm
Dinner on Nassau St.

Saturday, April 11 

8:45am - 9:15am
Breakfast

9:15am - 10:30am
"African Feminism(s) and Women's Rights: An Igbo Critique of CEDAW's Conception of Equality" (Heather Swadley, London School of Economics / SOAS)
Chair: Desmond Jagmohan | Discussant: Erin Miller

10:40am - 11:55am
"The Automaton, the Actor, and the Sea Serpent: Leviathan and the Politics of Metaphor" (Rebecca Ploof, University of Chicago)
Chair: Alison McQueen | Discussant: Trevor Latimer

11:55am - 12:20pm
Lunch

12:20pm - 1:35pm
"Structuring Fugitive Democracy: Archê, Common Good and Non-Hierarchy in Occupy and Porto Alegre" (Kevin Pham, University of California Riverside)
Chair: Minh Ly | Discussant: Alexander Ades

1:45pm - 3:00pm
"Liberal Integrity and Foreign Entanglement" (Shmuel Nili, Yale University)
Chair: George Kateb | Discussant: John DiIulio

6th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 5, 2013

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am - 10:40am
Adam Smith on Impartiality and Seeing Oneself From Another Point of View 
Alexander Prescott-Couch, Harvard University | Discussant: Emilee Chapman | Chair: Professor Alan Ryan

10:55am - 12:10pm
Hume’s Low Road to Toleration
Greg Conti, Harvard University | Discussant: James Linville | Chair: Professor Alan Ryan

12:10pm - 1:00pm
Lunch

1:00pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: Circulating Authority: Plato, Politics, and Political Theory
Jill Frank, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of South Carolina, Columbia

2:45pm - 4:00pm
What Is Justice? An Obituary for the Rawls-Cohen Debate
Micha Glaeser, Harvard University | Discussant: Jake Zuehl | Chair: Professor Alan Patten

4:10pm - 5:30pm
"Nothing is Really Equal": Nietzsche on Democracy and Self-Creation
Jennie Ikuta, Brown University | Discussant: Christopher Ro | Chair: Professor George Kateb

5:30pm - 7:00pm
Break

7:00pm - 10:00pm
Dinner - Nassau Sushi, 179 Nassau St.

Saturday, April 6

10:00am - 10:30am
Breakfast

10:30am - 11:45am
Affirming Dignity: Expressive Actions and Moral Wrongs
Amneris Chaparro, University of Essex | Discussant: Amy Hondo | Chair: Professor Stephen Macedo

11:55am - 1:10pm
Aristotle’s Division: Prolegomenon to a Theory of Penal Justice as Corrective Justice
Andrei Poama, Sciences Po / Yale University | Discussant: Benjamin Ewing | Chair: Professor Stephen Macedo

1:10pm
Lunch and farewell

5th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 6, 2012

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am - 10:30am
What's Wrong With Using Stereotypes?
Erin Beeghly, UC Berkeley | Discussant: Tom Dannenbaum | Chair: Professor Stephen Macedo 

10:45am - 11:45am
Scepticism about the Authority and Legitimacy of Immigration Law.
Caleb Yong, University of Oxford | Discussant: Brookes Brown | Chair: Professor Anna Stilz 

11:45am - 1:00pm
Lunch

1:00pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: Extinction and Democracy: Species Conservation and the Limits of Politics
Professor Elisabeth H. Ellis, Texas A&M

2:45pm - 3:45pm
Marxism, Humanism and History in the Political Thought of Hannah Arendt.
Waseem Yaqoob, University of Cambridge | Discussant: Chris Ro | Chair: Professor George Kateb 

4:00pm - 5:00pm
The Tragic Art of Crowd Pleasing.
Tae-Yeoun Keum, Harvard University | Discussant: Ted Lechterman | Chair: Sara Cotterill

Saturday, April 7

9:30am -10:00am
Breakfast

10:00am - 11:00am
Containing the Aristoi: John Adams's Anti-Aristocratic Theory of Balanced Government.
Luke Mayville, Yale University | Discussant: Ben Ewing | Chair: Michael Lamb

11:15am - 12:15pm
Kant's Dynamic Theory of Justice.
Jacob Weinrib, University of Toronto | Discussant: Sarah Goff | Chair: Professor Charles Beitz 

12:15pm - 1:15pm
Lunch

1:15pm - 2:15pm
What We Owe to the Hypocrites: Moral Contractualism and the Speaker-Relativity of Justification.
Johann Frick, Harvard University | Discussant: Trevor Latimer | Chair: Professor Philip Pettit 

2:30pm - 3:30pm
Jean Améry's Resentments: A Principled Disruption of Politics.
Grace Hunt, The New School | Discussant: Emilee Chapman | Chair: Matthew McCoy

4th Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 8, 2011

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am - 10:30am
Property, Unity, and the Threat of the Private: Wealth and Corruption in Plato’s Politics
Jacob Eisler, Harvard University | Discussant: Julie Rose | Chair: Melissa Lane

10:45am - 11:45am
Inclusive Institutions and Relational Equality
Govind Persad, Stanford University | Discussant: Trevor Latimer | Chair: Genevieve Rousseliere

11:45am - 1:00pm
Lunch

1:00pm - 2:30pm
Keynote address: After Power
Patchen Markell, University of Chicago

2:45pm - 3:45pm
Political Theory in the Modern World
Hugo El Kholi, Sciences Po | Discussant: Brookes Brown | Chair: Alan Patten

4:00pm - 5:00pm 
Localism and Loneliness: How Tocqueville’s Treatment of Townships Suggests Remedies to American Loneliness
Rachel Blum Spencer, Georgetown University | Discussant: Matt McCoy | Chair: Jan-Werner Mueller

Saturday, April 9

9:30am - 10:00am
Breakfast

10:00am - 11:00am
Prophetic Witness in the Liberal Public Sphere
Benjamin R. Hertzberg, Duke University | Discussant: Michael Lamb | Chair: Christopher Ro

11:15am - 12:15pm
The Kantian Idea of Human Rights
Ariel Zylberman, University of Toronto | Discussant: Sarah Goff | Chair: Charles Beitz

12:15pm - 1:15pm
Lunch

1:15pm - 2:15pm
The Mark of Sovereignty: Carl Schmitt’s Finanzpolitik
Adam Lebovitz, Harvard University | Discussant: Teresa Davis | Chair: Julie Rose

2:30pm - 3:30pm
Who Bears Responsibility for Post-Colonial Poverty?
Maeve McKeown, University College London | Discussant: Jess Flanigan | Chair: Brookes Brown

3rd Annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, April 9, 2010

9:00am - 9:30am
Breakfast

9:30am - 10:30am
“What’s Wrong with Theories of Justice Demanding More Than We Can Will?” (Dana Howard, Brown University)

10.45am - 11.45am
 “Justice and Legitimacy: Rawls and Schmitt on the Fact/Value Distinction” (Charles Olney, UCSC)

12pm - 1.30 pm
Tanner Lecture on Human Values: "The Coming Crisis of Constitutional Legitimacy" (Professor Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School)

2.30pm - 3.30pm
“Knowledge and Property in Workplace Democracy” (Iñigo González, University of Barcelona, visiting student at NYU)

3.45pm - 4.45pm
“Arendt, Jaspers, and the Politicized Physicists” (Cara O’Connor, SUNY at Stony Brook)

5:00pm - 6.30pm
Reception

7:00pm
Conference dinner

Saturday, April 10

9:30am - 10:00am
Breakfast

10:00am - 11:00am
“How Privatization Threatens the Private” (Chiara Cordelli, UCL and British Fellow, J. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC)

11.15am - 12.15pm
"Intuiting Equality" (Christopher Nathan, University of Toronto)

12.15pm - 1:00pm
Lunch

1:00pm - 2.30pm
Keynote address: “The Body in Action: Material Agency and Democratic Politics” (Professor Sharon Krause, Brown University)

2.45pm - 3.45pm
“Onora O’Neill and John Rawls on Kantian Constructivism” (Tim Smartt, University of Sydney)

4:00pm - 5:00pm
“Religion as a Social Contract in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes” (Will Selinger, Harvard)