Empire, Memory, Violence, and the Sociological Imagination
Thursday, August 8, 2019
CUNY Graduate Center
Skylight Room (Rm. 9100)

Any theorization of the social that is oriented towards emancipation necessitates an interrogation of empire, memory, violence, and the ways they have come to constitute the fabric of social life. What kinds of critical projects do the defining and study of these keywords enable? This symposium puts into conversation interdisciplinary thinkers who have developed friendships by and through grappling with what the terms empire, memory, and violence mean for them personally and politically. By discussing each of these keywords in pairs, our speakers trace new ways of understanding and mobilizing these terms. By centering friendship as both a condition and a locus of epistemic insight, we hope to build a sociological grammar that disrupts the divisiveness of empire and its reverberating legacies and inheritances. These conversations can serve as a collective rubric for rewriting the sociological imagination, underscoring the intellectual and political stakes of our work in imperial times.

This event is free and open to the public. The building is wheelchair-accessible. RSVP via the Facebook event page.