On Inequity and Its Contemporary Forms : A Transatlantic Lecture Series

Amid the current pandemic and the climate of rising populism and political tensions, the issue of inequity—be it racial, social, economic, gendered, biopolitical, or intersectional—has become particularly acute. Contemporary Western capitalist societies’ failure both to acknowledge these inequities and to achieve greater equity not only constitutes a common, critical concern within transatlantic contemporary thought, but also represents the most urgent political and philosophical problem of our ages.
The Center for French and Francophone Studies at Duke has asked several French-speaking intellectuals, from a wide range of humanistic disciplines, to share their own approaches to this concept of inequity and to analyze its crucial contemporary relevance. Lectures by Nadia Yala Kisukidi (Université Paris VIII), Jean-Luc Nancy (Université de Strasbourg), Didier Fassin (Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University), Felwine Sarr (Duke University), and Laure Murat (UCLA) TBA.

Nadia Yala Kisikudi—"Race and Hospitality" (Thursday, October 29, 2020)

How can we talk about “race” in France today ? And should we do so ? Is the use of this concept relevant to understand the experience of anti-black racism in a country that openly claims its own attachment to universalism ? The aim of this lecture is not to extend an on-going critique of universalism through a certain minority experience, but to explain the complexities in using the idea of race to sustain a certain sense of community. The inherent difficulties and contradictions in the notion of race will be described and analyzed through texts and political practices that deal with the black French experience.

Nadia Yala Kisukidi was born in Brussels, to a Congolese (DRC) father and Franco-Italian mother. She is currently an Associate Professor of philosophy at Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis University, and an Adjunct Director of the research center « Les logiques contemporaines de la philosophie » (LLCP). She was vice-president of the Collège International de Philosophie (2014-2016) and a member of the Critical Time (Duke University) editorial committee. She is now a co-curator of the Yango II Biennial in Kinshasa / RDC.

Kisukidi specializes in French and African philosophy. Since becoming a professor, she has taught in Switzerland and France and has contributed to the creation of a « Global South » research network between Haïti, France and Colombia. She has also published many books (individual and collective works) and philosophical articles.

All live zoom talks will be recorded and made available on the CFFS website.