QUESTIONING THE PRESENT

OVERVIEW

What is the nature of our present conjuncture? With what contradictions is it wrought? What possibilities does it open?

These questions were long the core of the humanities and social sciences, but over the last half century, their centrality has waned. Driven by a quest for precision, Braudel’s histoire de la longue durée gave way to l’histoire événementielle and even la microhistoireand, among more quantitative studies, narrower topics became increasingly dominant. As scholars across the humanities and social sciences turned their attention to more immediate concerns with discrete texts and narratives, the analysis of big framing concepts like modernity or global capitalism receded. Engagement with the big themes never vanished, but they are back at the center of attention. We live in an unsettled era and a present moment rife with transnational transformations and global challenges. New technologies call our attention to upheavals in capitalism and indeed in our understanding of the human itself. Shifiting political paradigms reflect increasing disorder within different polities and suggest that we might be on the verge of a reconstitution of the modern world-system. Building on the Center’s previous engagements, especially with “alternative modernities,” this forum seeks to explore not just what is going on now, but the significance of ‘now’ in macro-historical and global contexts.

The Center for Transcultural Studies, in collaboration with the Center for Global Culture and Communication (CGCC) at Northwestern University, is launching an online forum titled Questioning the Present. Every two months, we will congregate via a video conferencing service to address these questions and problems.

This is a hybrid forum, fostering dialogue among CTS members at the same time we invite the public to participate, via the co-sponsorship of the CGCC.

The inaugural session, on December 10, 2020, featured Dipesh Chakrabarty discussing his forthcoming book, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age.

Convener: Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar

EVENTS

The Working Sovereign:
Labor and Democratic Citizenship

Friday, January 24, 2025
10am – 12pm CST

Featuring:
Axel Honneth (Philosophy, Columbia University)

Respondents:
Elizabeth Anderson (Philosophy, University of Michigan)
Alex Gourevitch (Political Science, Brown University)
Stephen Sawyer (History, American University of Paris)

Convener:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Justice Is an Option:
A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century

Friday, November 1, 2024
10am–12pm CST

Featuring:
Robert Meister (History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz)

Respondents:
Nina Boy (Research Fellow, University of Warwick)
Jonathan Ira Levy (History, University of Chicago)
Timothy Mitchell (Middle Eastern, South Asian, & African Studies, Columbia University)

Convener:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Cannibal Capitalism:
How Our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do about It

Friday, April 5, 2024
10am CST

Featuring:
Nancy Fraser (Philosophy, The New School)

Respondents:
Ashley Bohrer (Gender and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame)
Michael Dawson (Political Science, University of Chicago)
Johanna Oksala (Philosophy, Loyola University-Chicago)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Making Space for Justice:
Social Movements, Collective Imagination and Political Hope

Friday, February 2, 2024
10am CST

Featuring:
Michele Moody-Adams (Philosophy, Columbia University)

Respondents:
Robin Celikates (Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin)
Juliet Hooker (Political Science, Brown University)
José Medina (Philosophy, Northwestern University)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Insurgent Universality:
An Alternative Legacy of Modernity

Friday, April 5, 2024
10am CST

Featuring:
Massimiliano Tomba (History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz)

Respondents:
John Brenkman (Comparative Literature and English, CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College, Emeritus)
Anne Norton (Political Science, University of Pennsylvania)
Uday Mehta (Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Neither Settler Nor Native:
The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities

Friday, September 29, 2023
10am CST

Featuring:
Mahmood Mamdani (Political Science, Columbia University)

Respondents:
Craig Calhoun (Social Sciences, Arizona State University)
Linford Fisher (History, Brown University)
Nandita Sharma (Sociology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

The Force of Non-Violence

Friday, June 2, 2023
10am CST

Featuring:
Judith Butler (Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School, Comparative Theory and Critical Theory, UC Berkeley)

Respondents:
Jay Bernstein (Philosophy, The New School)
Anne Boyer (Poet, Essayist, and Writer, Kansas City Art Institute)
José Medina (Philosophy, Northwestern University)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South

Friday, February 3, 2023
10am CST

Featuring:
Prathama Banerjee (History and Political Theory, Center for the Study of Developing Societies-CSDS, New Delhi)

Discussants:
Humberto Beck (Center for International Studies, El Colegio de México)
Murad Idris (Political Science, University of Michigan)
Rochona Majumdar (South Asian Languages & Civilizations and Cinema & Media Studies, University of Chicago)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.

The Populist Century

Friday, December 2, 2022
10am CST

Featuring:
Pierre Rosanvallon (Modern and Contemporary Political History, Collège de France)

Discussants:
Michael Sandel (Government, Harvard University)
Charles Taylor (Philosophy, McGill University)
Nadia Urbinati (Political Science, Columbia University)

Organizer:
Dilip Gaonkar (Communication Studies, Northwestern University)

Free and open to the public. On Zoom.