Time: 6:00 - 8:00pm Venue: Room 3.20, Arts Two Building, Mile End Campus
Panel Discussion and Drinks ReceptionChair Dr Caroline Williams, Queen Mary University of London
SpeakersDr Leonie Ansems De Vries, Queen Mary University of London Prof. Kim Hutchings, Queen Mary University of LondonProf. Jef Huysmans, Open UniversityProf. Vivienne Jabri, King's College LondonThe prominence and variety of global movements of resistance indicates that the idea of politics as governance is contested. However, the political canon continues to reinforce a narrow definition of politics according to liberal principles and practices. Re-Imagining a Politics of Life develops a new theory of political life that includes, and highlights the interconnectedness of, forces of order, disorder, governance, resistance, violence and difference. Using the concept of the milieu— both a mechanism of governance and a force of difference and transformation—this book stages an encounter between the modern political and international thought of Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant and the contemporary philosophy of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. The writings of Foucault and Deleuze serve to explore and contextualise the milieu and function to highlight the complex mobility and relationality of notions of politics, life, governance and resistance.
This book deserves the attention of scholars and students of political theory everywhere. Entering “in the middle” of critical thinking about the politics of life as it has been articulated in the history of European political philosophy, Leonie Ansems De Vries brings the politics-life problematic up-to-date with attention to both contemporary political issues and the current critical philosophical work within which “life” is on the agenda. The book is timely, nuanced and politically acute. Michael J. Shapiro, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawaii
Leonie Ansems de Vries is a Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary, University of London