Critical Theory in Critical Times Annual Workshop
The Critical Theory in Critical Times annual workshop series is a joint initiative of the Center for Global Culture and Communication (CGCC) and the Critical Theory Cluster. The aim of this workshop series is to create a forum for discussion of recently published work in the tradition of critical theory broadly construed. Authors are invited to an in-depth discussion of their scholarly work with specialists in the field and in a small workshop setting. This setting offers an excellent opportunity to faculty and students of the Northwestern community to directly engage in lively discussion with very distinguished critical theorists from around the world. In preparation of the workshop, a reading session is organized among interested NU faculty and students to discuss the work in question.
2024-2025 Critical theory in critical times Workshop
Diagnosing Social Pathology: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim, with Fred Neuhouser
Friday, November 1, 2024
3:30pm - 7:30pm CST
Location: Harris Hall 108, 1881 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60208
The 2024 Critical Theory in Critical Times annual series workshop will focus around the work of Fred Neuhouser (Viola Manderfeld Professor of German and a professor of Philosophy at Barnard College, Columbia University) and, in particular, his newest book Diagnosing Social Pathology: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim. Fred Neuhouser will discuss this work with Robert Pippin (University of Chicago), Megan Hyska (Northwestern University), Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt University, Berlin), and Joshua Kleinfeld (George Mason).
Can a human society suffer from illness like a living thing? And if so, how does such a malaise manifest itself? In this thought-provoking book, Fred Neuhouser explains and defends the idea of social pathology, demonstrating what it means to describe societies as 'ill', or 'sick', and why we are so often drawn to conceiving of social problems as ailments or maladies. He shows how Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim – four key philosophers who are seldom taken to constitute a 'tradition' – deploy the idea of social pathology in comparable ways, and then explores the connections between societal illnesses and the phenomena those thinkers made famous: alienation, anomie, ideology, and social dysfunction. His book is a rich and compelling illumination of both the idea of social disease and the importance it has had, and continues to have, for philosophical views of society.
Reading Group Information
We invite faculty and graduate students to participate in a reading group on Thursday October 24th, in advance of the Nov 1, 2024 workshop. A copy of the book will be available to participants. If you would like to participate, please contact Critical Theory Graduate Assistant Abigail Iturra (abigail.iturra@u.northwestern.edu).