Saturday, October 21, 2 – 4 pm
“What About Truth?”
Interdisciplinary panel discussion on the political role of intellectuals in a post-truth era, extending the inquiry initiated by the project SIGHTINGS 21. (Post-)Truth on Display.
With four Concordia University professors: Rosemary Collard, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment; Graham Dodds, Department of Political Science; Shauna Janssen, Department of Theater; and Theresa Ventura, Department of History.
Moderator: Katrie Chagnon
What challenges does the “post-truth” era pose to the university as an institution of knowledge and critical thinking? What are the epistemological and sociopolitical consequences of a massive disaffection toward truth, as observed recently in the public and media spheres, on academic life? How does the current situation bring to the fore the crucial problem of intellectuals’ responsibility towards “truth,” “facts,” “reason,” and “objectivity” – notions once discredited by poststructuralist/postmodern theory in favour of social constructivism and a form of cognitive relativism? Ultimately, which types of critical relationship to knowledge and power is it possible – and desirable – to adopt today in the academic sphere, as well as in the art world? Without attempting to resolve these complex issues, the panel participants provide various disciplinary points of view in order to inform a debate on the changing status of truth, its ethics and current politics.
Location: room EV 2.776 (access via the FOYER EV 2.781), EV Building, 1515, Ste-Catherine W.
A video of the conversation is available in the Audio | Video section.
As a human geographer and political ecologist, Rosemary Collard‘s main interest lies in the relationship between capitalism and ecological – especially animal – life. She studies environmental issues including global wildlife trade, biodiversity loss and extinction, seeking to understand how one of the root drivers of these issues is how capital accumulation depends on and depletes animal life. Rosemary’s research combines primary, multisite and multispecies fieldwork – including participant observation, interviews and archival research – with insights from critical theory and geography, especially feminist political economy. Rosemary is an assistant professor in geography at Concordia and an editor of the new journal, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
Graham G. Dodds is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. He has diverse research interests and expertise, ranging from comparative politics to political theory, but much of his work focuses on the politics of the United States. He has published widely on American political development and the U.S. president’s use of unilateral directives, which is the topic of his book Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics (2013). He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and as a legislative assistant for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shauna Janssen (PhD, Humanities 2014, Concordia University) is a Montreal based urban curator with a background in professional theatre, as well as an independent scholar working at the intersections of site-specific, critical, spatial, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged art practices. Within the context of urban change, her curatorial work involves long-term documentary and site-specific research projects. She is working with oral history, post humanist thought, feminist and queer theory to rethink sites, discourses, and themes such as spatial agency, the public sphere, gender, class, race, gentrification and the right to the city. Her ongoing research addresses the cultural politics and futures of postindustrial urban spaces, and the role of art/ists in creating politically engaged communities in these spaces. Shauna is artist in residence teaching in the Department of Theatre and Studio Arts at Concordia University.
Theresa Ventura holds an MA and PhD in History from Columbia University and a BA in History and women’s studies from Brooklyn College. Her research draws together the histories of United States foreign relations, medicine, agriculture, and the environment. Her current manuscript, tentatively titled Empire Reformed: The United States, the Philippines, and the Practices of Development, investigates American attempts to recast rural life and agricultural production in the Philippines, then the United States’ most populous formal colony, and considers the impact of this project on Philippines politics, health, and nature. Before coming to Concordia, Dr. Ventura was an Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, and was a 2010-2011 American Council of Learned Societies-Mellon Foundation Post-doctoral fellow at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington DC.