Fall 2023 Populism & Religion Seminar 3
Populisms and Prejudice, by Isabelle Aubert
NOTE: This event has been canceled and replaced with another event at the same time and Zoom link.
On Monday, 27 November, 2023 (16:15–18:00) on Zoom, Dr. Isabelle Aubert, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, will give a presentation titled "Populisms and Prejudice."
Whether on the right or on the left, populism is a shifting political form that can combine reactionary and progressive tendencies, while at the same time justifying its contradictions and inconsistencies in the name of the "people" it claims to represent. The development of populism in contemporary democracies, especially thanks to powerful communication media, is a testimony both to the vitality of civil society, which is necessary for democracy, and to the embrace of the masses, which is highly anti-democratic. This ambivalent position makes it difficult to define populism precisely and to determine whether it is good or bad for democracy. However, it can be deciphered when the authoritarian tendency takes over. Drawing on the analyses of prejudice carried out by various members of the Frankfurt School in the United States in the 1940s, this paper will look at populist rhetoric to show how the evolution of different populisms (progressive or reactionary) renders obsolete the ideal of a left-wing populism that would differ in its aspirations from conservative populism by being the expression of a genuine radical democracy.
Isabelle Aubert is Associate Professor in philosophy at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (France) and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She is the author of Habermas. Une théorie critique de la société (2015). She has co-edited Dialogues avec Habermas (2018), La pensée et les normes (2020), Luhmann. Une théorie générale de la société (2023), Adorno. Dialectique et négativité (2023), and The Archives of Critical Theory (2023). She conducts research on Critical Theory, contemporary political philosophy, and rights. She tranlated Gunther Teubner’s book Verfassungsfragmente. Konstitutionalismus in der Globalisierung (2012) into French.
Zoom: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/62645329724
Meeting ID: 626 4532 9724
16h15–18h00, Swedish time [CEST]