HistCon Speaker Series Spring 24: "Opacity and Voice in Glissant and Arguedas" with Benjamin Davis

Benjamin Davis (Saint Louis University) gives lecture "Opacity and Voice in Édouard Glissant and José María Arguedas" followed by a Q&A. Recorded April 15th, 2024. In this talk, I consider what the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant called "the right to opacity." But instead of looking to the political documents that form the context for Glissant's rights claim, I turn to two moments in the novels of the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas. In this way, I suggest that Arguedas illustrates how human rights are lived out not just in law, but also in everyday life. ---------------------- Benjamin P. Davis is a Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies at Saint Louis University. He is the author of two books: Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics; and Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins. With Kris F. Sealey, he is also the co-editor of Creolizing Critical Theory: New Voices in Caribbean Philosophy. Davis’s work is known for its reconstructive approach to human rights as well as for its pluralistic understanding of philosophy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the History of Consciousness Department website: https://histcon.ucsc.edu/ See upcoming Speaker Series events: https://histcon.ucsc.edu/hisc_speaker... View past Speaker Series lectures: https://histcon.ucsc.edu/hisc_speaker...