Please join us for the Columbia University Graduate Conference in Political Theory on February 28th, 2025! Graduate students in political theory, political philosophy, intellectual history, and adjacent disciplines will present their research to an engaged audience comprising the Columbia community and the broader New York City political theory network. Each presentation will receive thoughtful feedback from Columbia faculty discussants, followed by an open Q&A. We are honored to welcome Dr. Bruno Leipold as our keynote speaker. Registration required; we look forward to seeing you soon.
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Conference Schedule
8.00-9.00 AM | Breakfast
9.00-10.15 AM | LIBERTY & CRITIQUE
“Abolition and the Critique of Liberal Legalism"
Daniel Epstein (University of Chicago)
Discussant: Prof. Bernard Harcourt
"Means to the End of Freedom: Instrumental Reason and the Possibility of Social Critique"
Matthew Cohen (Harvard University)
Discussant: Prof. Nadia Urbinati
10.30-11.45 AM | ACTIVISM
“Protest as Spectacle"
Megha Devraj (University of Southern California)
Discussant: Prof. Jean L. Cohen
“Reading Dalit Feminist Praxis as Strategic Essentialism"
Ishan Maunder (University of Chicago)
Discussant: Prof. Alyssa Battistoni
12.00-1.15 PM |CIVILITY & CIVILIZED
“Affective Autonomy and Affective Civility"
Katie Zhou (MIT)
Discussant: Prof. Turku Isiksel
“Discarded Body Parts: Abject Food and What it Means to be ‘Civilized’"
Danielle Ortiz (Northwestern University)
Discussant: Prof. David C. Johnston
1.30-2.30 PM | Lunch
2.45-4.00 PM | DEMOCRACY REVISITED
“Julius Nyerere’s Anticolonial Nostalgia"
Mirza Baig (University of Michigan)
Discussant: Prof. Karuna Mantena
“Redeeming the Lost Foundation: Hannah Arendt, Council Communism & the Forms of Insurgent Self-Rule"
Marshall Pierce (University of Chicago)
Discussant: Prof. Ayten Gundogdu
4.15-5.30 PM | UTOPIA & VICE
“Recovering the Politics of Vice: Mandeville’s Challenge"
Gio Maria Tessarolo (University of California, Berkeley)
Discussant: Prof. Dan Luban
“Utopia and Hope in the Thought of Judith Shklar"
Ming Kit Wong (University of Oxford)
Discussant: Dr. Nathan Feldman
5.45-7.00 PM | KEYNOTE ADDRESS
“Constituency Juries: Holding Elected Representatives Accountable Through Sortition”
Dr. Bruno Leipold (LSE)
