Two Cheers for Anarchism: On Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play

Jim Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University, will be speaking March 25th as part of the Monday Seminar Series from 12:0-1:30 in room 101 West Duke Building.

Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Scott will provide a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. The anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities has influences on issues such as public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation.

Scott’s research concerns political economy, comparative agrarian societies, theories of hegemony and resistance, peasant politics, revolution, Southeast Asia, theories of class relations and anarchism. He is currently teaching Agrarian Studies and Rebellion, Resistance and Repression.

Visiting Human Rights Fellow Will Kymlicka will be giving a lunch seminar on Thursday. Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queens’s University, Kingston, Canada and Co-Director of the Multiculturalism Policy Index.

Lunch is free to all participants who register; to register contact Kelly Lipford at kelly.lipford@duke.edu.

Thursday, March 21
12:45 – 1:45 pm
101 West Duke Building, East Campus
Free and Open to the Public

Authors Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson will give a talk related to their 2011 book Zoopolis. Zoopolis examines the obligations that human societies have to animals by using political theory models of citizenship. Kymlicka and Donaldson offer a vision of how to ground the complex web of human and animal relations on the principles of justice and compassion.

Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Sue Donaldson is an independent researcher and author.

Wednesday, March 20
5:30 – 6:30, Reception to follow
101 West Duke Building, East Campus
Free admission and parking; open to the public

On Monday March 18th, Brother Number One  (2011) will be screened as part of the Ethics Film Series. Through New Zealander Rob Hamill’s story of his brother’s death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Brother Number One explores how the regime and its followers killed nearly 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Thirty years later, Rob has a rare chance to take the stand as a witness at the Cambodia War Crimes Tribunal. In this documentary,  Rob retraces his brother’s final days, meeting survivors who tell the story of what countless families across Cambodia experienced at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The film will begin at 7:00pm  in the Griffith Film Theater in Duke University’s Bryan Center, followed by a post-film discussion with Luke Bretherton (Duke Divinity School) and Jeffrey Sonis (UNC Department of Social Medicine).

The screenings are free and open to the public. Refreshments and free parking passes provided.

The theme of the 2013 Ethics Film Series is “Love and Justice.” This year, the film series will be in collaboration with the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival. Each spring, the Kenan Institute for Ethics sponsors a film series in collaboration with Duke’s Screen/Society, the Center for Documentary Studies, and the Arts of the Moving Image Program. The films provide popular and accessible vehicles for talking about ethics around a particular theme, and each series as a whole offers rich opportunities for debate and discussion on ethical issues for audiences from both the Duke and Durham communities.

March 5, 2013
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Jameson Gallery, Friedl Building

Opening Reception
Survival in Sarajevo: The Story of La Benevolencija. Jews, Muslims, Croats & Serbs working together during the Bosnian War, 1992-1995.

This photographic exhibit, made possible by Centropa, will be on display from March 1-29, 2013.

Parking available behind the Friedl Building. From Buchanan St., turn left into East Campus; free after 5:00 pm.

Sponsored by the Duke Center for European Studies, with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at Duke University.