Event Details
Tue, September 18, 2018
12:00 – 14:00
VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50138 Firenze
A Dialogue with Amrita Banerjee, Indian Institute of Technology, and Debora Spini, NYU Florence Lecturer.
Movements against social injustices have historically evoked the idea of solidarity. In the context of traditional liberal feminism, solidarity was primarily constructed through an appeal to common oppression. Intra-group differences were downplayed, resulting in a unidimensional and colonizing understanding of the concept. This talk will outline the conceptual dimensions of solidarity within the traditional liberal framework and address critiques from various perspectives such as difference feminisms in the West, postcolonial feminisms, and Third World feminisms. Banerjee will trace a new theoretical pathway for the concept of solidarity that makes it possible to accommodate differences.
Featured Biographies
Amrita Banerjee
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHOLOGY
Amrita Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oregon, with a dissertation on “Re-conceiving ‘Borders’: A Feminist Pragmatic Phenomenology for Postcolonial Feminist Ethics and Politics”. Her areas of interest include: feminist philosophies, ethics and moral philosophy, social and politicial philosophy and classical and feminist pragmatism. She taught in the U.S. at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania and the University of Oregon. Her latest publications include: “‘Diversity’ as ‘Poise’: Toward a Renewed ‘Ethics of Diversity’” (Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2018) and Mothering from the Margins: Critical Conversations (a special issue co-edited with Bonnie Mann in Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Philosophical Documentation Center, 2016).
Debora Spini
PROFESSOR , NEW YORK UNIVERSITY FLORENCE, UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE, AND SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY FLORENCE
Debora Spini teaches Social Foundations at New York University Florence, Political Theory at Syracuse University in Florence, and is adjunct professor in Social Philosophy at the Cesare Alfieri School of Political Science at the University of Florence. She is author of monographs, such as La società civile post nazionale (Meltemi, Roma, 2006), and co-editor of several collective books, including Art and Practices of Citizenship, La coscienza protestante, (Claudiana, 2015), Civil Society and Global Governance, (Routledge, Garnet Book Series, 2010). She has published various essays and chapters in collective books, including the most recent Protestantesimo e Sfera pubblica in Forum sul Suffragismo (in Storia e politica, 2017, n. 2, pp 535-546), La secolarizzazione e i suoi “post”. Democrazie e Sacro condiviso in Il Senso della Repubblica nel XXI secolo (Heos.it, 2016) and Religione e felicità, in Felicità italiane. Un campionario filosofico (Mimesis 2016). Spini has held lectures in italy and abroad, most recently at Bangalore University and at University of Madras Chennai in India.