Category: News

Details and podcast here.

3 May 2013
Leslie Stephen Room
Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Morning session: Domination and Unfreedom

Chair: Hallvard Lillehammer

10.20 – 11.40 David Blunt (Cambridge)
Conceptualizing Domination

Respondent: Amanda Cawston

11.40 – 1.00 Laura Valentini (UCL)
Freedom as Independence

Respondent: Neal Carrier

Afternoon session: Domination and Inequality

Chair: Chris Thompson

2 – 3.20 Stuart White (Oxford)
The Relevance of Republicanisms

Respondent: Claire Benn

3.20 – 4.40 Nicholas Vrousalis (Cambridge)
What domination is (and what it is not)

Respondent: Sebastian Nye

Fascism: what it is and how to fight it

Sunday 17th February
Keynes Hall
King’s College, Cambridge

Session 1: Fascism in History
Chair: Dr Lorna Finlayson

10.00 – 10.50am Dr John Pollard on Italy
10.50 – 11.40am Dr Martin Ruehl on Germany
11.40 – 12.30pm Dr David Renton on the UK

Session 2: The Politics of Fascism and Anti-Fascism
Chair: Amy Gilligan

1.30 – 2.15pm Joseph Choonara on the United Front
2.15 – 3pm Dr Nicholas Vrousalis on Fascism and the State (and a note on no-platform)

Session 3: Fighting Fascism Today
Chair: Laura Kilbride

3.10 – 3.50pm Mitch Mitchell on the UK
3.50 – 4.30pm Elisabeth Mantzari on Greece
4.30 – 5.10pm Dr Clement Mouhot on France

17 May 2013

Coleridge Room
Jesus College, Cambridge

Should fascists and/or racists be given a platform? Does denial of platform deprive racists of freedom of speech? Should that freedom be protected? Liberal conventional wisdom tends to answer most, or all, of these and related questions in the affirmative. This workshop will critically engage with the liberal conventional wisdom and challenge the assumptions underpinning it.

Morning session

Chair: Priya Gopal

10.30 – 11.30am Caleb Yong (Oxford)
Liberal Rights, Free Speech, and Hate Speech

11.30 – 12.30am Nicholas Vrousalis (Cambridge)
Hate Speech and Inequality

Afternoon session

Chair: Chris Thompson

2 – 3.00pm Lorna Finlayson (Cambridge)
Free Speech as Liberal Fiction

3 – 4.00pm Sebastian Nye (Cambridge)
No-platform, Speech and Speech Acts

The Political Philosophy Workshop is a forum for discussing work in progress by Cambridge political philosophers at the doctoral level and above.

Papers are pre-circulated on the Workshop mailing list and must be read in advance: there will be no presentation of the paper at the Workshop.

The Workshop is open to senior members and graduate students in Political Philosophy and is not limited to members of the Faculty of Philosophy. More details here.

Details here.

Exploitation, Exclusion and Discrimination

Lovanium Seminar in Ethics and Public Policy 2011-12

Toon Vandevelde (KULeuven), Philippe Van Parijs (UCL), Nicholas Vrousalis (KULeuven)

Thursday October 13, 2011 (10.30 – 17.00, Dupriez 144, 3 Place Montesquieu, LLN)

10.30 – 11.00: Toon Vandevelde, Philippe Van Parijs, Nicholas Vrousalis: practical organization
11.00 – 13.00: Philippe Van Parijs: An Overview of Contemporary Political Philosophy
13.00 – 14.00: lunch
14.00 – 15.30: Nicholas Vrousalis: Exploitation: Concepts and Theories, Part I
15.30 – 17.00: General discussion introduced by Toon Vandevelde and Philippe Van Parijs

Thursday November 10, 2011 (10.30 – 17.00, Room S, Institute of Philosophy, Kard. Mercierplein, 2, Leuven)

10.30 – 12.30: Nicholas Vrousalis (KULeuven): Exploitation: Concepts and Theories, Part II
12.30 – 13.30: lunch
13.30 – 15.00: Gijs van Donselaar (Universiteit van Amsterdam): Social policy and the right to exploit
15.30 – 17.00: General discussion introduced by Philippe Van Parijs and Nicholas Vrousalis

Thursday November 24, 2011 (10.30 – 17.00, Room S, Institute of Philosophy, Kard. Mercierplein, 2, Leuven)

10.30 – 12.30: Axel Gosseries (UCL): An egalitarian assessment of anti-discrimination law
12.30 – 13.30: lunch
13.30 – 15.00: Bea Cantillon (Universiteit Antwerpen): Social policy and the duty of insertion
15.30 – 17.00: General discussion introduced by Yannick Vanderborght (tbc) and Nicholas Vrousalis

Thursday December 8, 2011 (10.30 – 17.00, Dupriez 144, 3 Place Montesquieu, LLN)

10.30 – 12.30: Filip Dorssemont (UCL): Non-discrimination versus worker protection
12.30 – 13.30: lunch
13.30 – 15.00: Isabelle Ferreras (UCL): Exploitation and alienation at work in post-industrial capitalism – and what to do about it
15.30 – 17.00: General discussion introduced by Toon Vandevelde and Nicholas Vrousalis

Manchester workshops in Political Theory
August 31 – September 2, 2011

Convened by Adina Preda and Nicholas Vrousalis

Session 1, 31/08: What is exploitation?

Chair: Nicholas Vrousalis

14.00 – 15.10
Exploitation in the Liberal Capitalist State (abstract)
Mark Reiff (Manchester)

15.10 – 16.20
What is Exploitation? (abstract)
Roberto Veneziani (Queen Mary, London)

16.20 – 17.30
Liberal vs. Marxian Perspectives on Exploitation (abstract)
Paul Warren (Florida)

Session 2, 01/09: Exploitation and Fairness

Chair: Adina Preda

9.00 – 10.10
Exploitation and Unfairness (abstract)
Wendy van der Neyt (Edinburgh)

10.10 – 11.20
Marxism, Equality and Exploitation (abstract)
John Filling (St John’s, Oxford)

11.20 – 12.30
Exploitation, Equality and the Structure of Proletarian Unfreedom (abstract)
Nicholas Vrousalis (Louvain)

Session 3, 01/09: Who Exploits?

Chair: John Filling

14.00 – 15.10
Who is responsible for exploitation? (abstract)
Benjamin Ferguson (LSE)

15.10 – 16.20
Is exploitation voluntary? (abstract)
Adina Preda (Montreal)

16.20 – 17.30
On Duty (abstract)
Karl Widerquist (Georgetown-Qatar)

Session 4, 02/09: Exploitation and the Virtues

Chair: Karl Widerquist

9.00 – 10.10
Exploiting an Individual’s Virtue (abstract)
Rob Lawlor (Leeds)

11.20 – 12.30
Exploiting Gift Givers (abstract)
Sara Belfrage (Stockholm)

Roundtable discussion

Exploitation: conceptual, normative and political perspectives

Manchester workshops in Political Theory, August 31 – September 2, 2011

Charges of exploitation are levelled on a daily basis at different agents in different contexts: trade and market exchanges, work relationship as well as personal relationships. Although the concept of exploitation has been central to the Marxist critique of capitalism, the pervasiveness of exploitative relationships has recently received attention in a number of important studies in political philosophy.

This workshop will attack three main questions: first, what exactly constitutes exploitation, second, whether exploitation is best conceived as a phenomenon necessarily involving a transgression of justice or fairness –and, if so, how- and, third, whether the best conception of exploitation –whatever that is- can still function as a critical tool for effective social critique of social structures, from small-scale institutions (such as the family) to large-scale economic phenomena (such as the mode of production).

Our aim is to provoke a rigorous discussion of the conceptual, normative and political intricacies of exploitation. We welcome papers that contribute to this aim, including work in analytic philosophy, analytic sociology and normative political science.

Please send an abstract by May 31st to the workshop convenors, Adina Preda and Nicholas Vrousalis, to exploitationworkshop2011@gmail.com

The Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Justitia Amplificata’ at the Goethe University of Frankfurt organised a wonderful workshop on Jerry’s thought between the 8th and 9th of April 2011.

The full programme can be found here. My own contribution, on Jerry’s account of exploitation, will be posted on this site shortly.