Campus Announcements

Dr. Emily Beausoleil, lecturer in Politics at Massey University, New Zealand

In light of the epistemic violence that characterizes histories of encountering ‘others’ on uneven discursive terrain, political theorists have increasingly shifted the focus from the right to speak to the demand and dynamics of listening across social difference. As yet, far less has been developed regarding how this normative demand might translate into practical terms. Drawing on recent neuroscientific research, this talk will argue that the receptivity that politics demands is contingent on somatic conditions and cues we have barely begun to understand. I then turn to experts in precisely this domain ­ dancers and movement therapists for whom listening is primarily somatic and whose practices are designed to cultivate receptivity even as they challenge deeply held and often latent beliefs and values ­ to explore their potential contribution to our understandings of the role the body might play in our relative openness or refusal to listen.

Tags

Lectures and Seminars