Saturday, 9 July 2022, 7.30 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Conversation with
Lewis R. Gordon | Juliana M. Streva
In this fourth edition of in theory, we will be in a personal conversation with Lewis R. Gordon and explore his life trajectory and the implicit and explicit boundaries of philosophy as a discipline and their continuous transgression. What does it mean to address Blackness in philosophy? What is the place for a critique of European philosophy’s colonial conditions? How is it possible to be simultaneously inside and outside philosophy? What are the im/possible reverberations between philosophy, music and physics? How do fiction, biography, and (philosophical) theory resonate together? And where does philosophy, finally, begin to groove? The conversation will be mediated by Juliana M. Streva.
Lewis R. Gordon is an Afro-Jewish public intellectual, academic, and musician. He teaches at the University of Connecticut, where he is a Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department. He lectures and is involved in political and artistic projects across the globe and holds research and teaching appointments in several countries. Lewis Gordon is the author of many books, including What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought (2015), and most recently, Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (2021) and Fear of Black Consciousness (2022), to be published in German translation later this year.
Juliana Streva is a transdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of law, social sciences, philosophy and arts. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, part of the Project “Global Repertoires of Living Together” funded by the Berlin University Alliance. Streva’s work engages with anticolonial, antiracist and feminist epistemologies and praxis, particularly focusing on questions of knowledge production, political violence, the body, and fugitive strategies of re-existence and co-existence.
Pandemic: The event will be held in accordance with current COVID-19 regulations. The room is equipped with air filtration devices, but given the persistent viral situation, we would also like to ask you, if possible, to test yourselves with a rapid test ahead of the event.
