The Walker Institute of International and Area Studies is pleased to present "That Obscure Object of Morality” by our featured speaker, Didier Fassin, an anthropologist, sociologist and physician, and a Professor at the Collège de France.

 Anthropologists have long been reluctant with regard to the study of morality, fearing that it would be vitiated by the projection of their own values. The word “moral” is indeed simultaneously and ambiguously descriptive and normative. Yet, in recent years, a rich field of research has developed, mainly in the alternative form of a Durkheimian approach to moral codes inspired by the ethics of duty and a Foucauldian interpretation of moral subjectivation inherited from the ethics of virtue.

 The lecture will analyze the emergence of these new objects in the study of social life, its resonance with changes in public discourses, and the discussions to which it gave rise.

 But a distinct, critical framework will be presented, questioning both the normative dimension of the word “moral”, so as to open to all values and emotions independently of prior evaluation of their merit, and the consistency of the domain of “morality”, considering that what is observable are instead moral issues linked to historical circumstances, cultural sensitivities, social mobilizations, and political stakes.

 Case studies from various research in France, South Africa, and the Middle East on humanitarianism, trauma, immigration, policing, punishment, and violence will serve to reflect on concepts of moral sentiments and moral economies, and on their heuristic significance to apprehend some of the difficult questions of our time.

Time: 6pm-7:30pm

Location: Capstone House, Campus Room 

Tickets are free but registration is required (please use this link).

 

Sponsored by European Studies (Walker Institute) and the Department of Anthropology

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