Date:
Location:
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center's France and the World Seminar & the Department of Romance Languages Literatures presents
"Sphères d'injustice: Pour un universalisme minoritaire"
Wednesday, April 10 @ 5:00PM
Location: Boylston Hall, Room 335
Reception to follow
Bruno Perreau (MIT) will be presenting on his latest book, Sphères d'injustice: pour un universalisme minoritaire (Spheres of Injustice: A Defense of Minority Universalism), published in October 2023 with La Découverte. Spheres of Injustice proposes a new theory of justice based on a cross-cultural study of minority politics and anti-discrimination law in France and the United States.
Spheres of Injustice analyzes the challenges faced by the notion of minority today on both sides of the Atlantic:
- “Minority” has become so complex a denomination that it is difficult to use in law and spawns its own, whole diversity industry.
- Reactionary instrumentalizes it by demanding, in the name of their freedom of expression, to be protected as minorities.
- The lists of protected groups encourage competition among minorities, as is the case, regarding affirmative action, between Asian-American and African-American students.
Spheres of Injustice attempts to overcome these challenges and restore sharpness to the notion of minority. In the wake of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, the book proposes a theory of subjectivity as a sort of co-appearance with others on the social stage. This demonstrates that we are governed by the way others are governed.
As a rereading of Michael Walzer’s classic work, Spheres of Justice, Perreau's book shows that responsibility to others and protecting the planet require a conception of justice based not only on abstract moral principles in different spheres of life but also on the concrete experience of injustice. Spheres of Injustice thus defends a minority ethics of learning rather than a morality of interest (classical liberal theories), recognition (multiculturalist theories), or empathy (care theories). Spheres of Injustice demonstrates the need for a universalist philosophy based on the minority part that runs through each of us.