Talking Violence

What does it take to properly humanitarianise politics? How can we account for the failures of the humanitarian past? Does the humanitarian impetus even have a role in play in societies that have seemingly abandoned their utopian ambitions? Addressing such questions, Juliano Fiori from Save the Children asks us to account more fully for the intellectual history of the humanitarian condition, recognise its relationship to violence, and rethink the idea of a society of the humanitarian minimum.

What does it mean to utter the words civil war today? And how can the concept allow us to make sense of the dangerous politics times in which we live?  Addressing such questions, Professor David Theo Goldberg asks us to reflect upon the racial contours of civil war in the contemporary moment, especially considering the global lockdown and the onset of what he terms "tracking-capitalism".

In the first in our conversations series, Simon Critchley provides his reflections on the way violence has appeared/changed in his work; the question of class; the enduring memory of Hillsborough and Liverpool; the dangers of a moral certainty taking over the left, onto the poetic idea of philosophical self-immolation

What is the relationship between violence & freedom? Might we look upon freedom as an ugly concept? And can we rescue something from the ugliness of freedom? Such questions are addressed in this episode by Elisabeth Anker, who is an associate professor at George Washington University. The talk draws upon ideas explored in her forthcoming book titled "Ugly Freedoms".

We recorded this lecture with Zygmunt Bauman for the Histories of Violence project a few years before his passing. One of the most brilliant and challenging lectures on violence, it warrants our continued attention and engagement. Bauman's warning from history in fact is even more resonant in the world today.