Spinozan Genealogies of Political Community

UNSW, Morven Brown 310, 9.30am July 25, 2013

An international workshop organised by the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales
Supported by the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney

Spinoza’s idea that ‘the right of the individual is co-extensive with its determinate power’ has influenced important strains of contemporary political thought including Deleuze and Foucault, the Althusser School with Negri and Balibar, and socialist theology after Feuerbach. However, the assertion of equivalence between rights and powers confounds classic conceptions of sovereignty and political justice. How is the protection of fragile bodies able to be secured, if the right to persevere is linked with a power of endurance? If the indivisible power of a sovereign state is aligned with its right, then how are we to think about contested sovereignties in jurisdictions after empire? Participants…