Identity and Nationalism: From Kant to Contemporary America

Identity politics is an idea with a long history—a history that originated in the Enlightenment, intersects with nationalism, and continues with political statements and mobilizations by a diverse array of marginalized, and dominant, groups. Today, identity politics transcends traditional notions of place, space, and even race in ways that complicate core ideas of personal, class, and nationalistic identity.

In Identity and Nationalism: From Kant to Contemporary America, taking place Tuesday, October 23rd, at Urban Artifact brewery, we’ll examine the inter-related history of the two ideas, and ask key questions of urgent relevance to our current political moment: To what extent is nationalism at odds with liberalism? How do considerations of race, class, and privilege complicate nationalist, liberal, and even conservative ideologies? Are liberalism and the politics of identity consistent with, or even supportive of, nationalistic sentiments? What kind of political action follows from a politics of identity? Finally, how are we to understand ethnic group politics within a pluralist society that nevertheless features a distinct nationalistic orientation?

Join Tim Brownlee and Gabe Gottlieb, Associate Professors of Philosophy at Xavier University, and Holly McGee, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati, for a lively discussion of the long history of identity politics, the return of nationalism, and the competing identities and forces currently shaping American political life.

Identity and Nationalism is co-sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (United Kingdom) and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Participants

• Holly McGee

  A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinatti, Dr. Holly McGee specializes in U. S. History and African American History, with an emphasis on black women’s intellectual history, comparative political activism in the United States and South Africa, and popular culture in the twentieth century. Her secondary specialties include local histories of the American South, South African women’s history, and oral histories. Currently, Dr. McGee teaches undergraduate courses in black history and film, culture and counterculture, post-1929 American history, and modern South African history.

• Timothy Brownlee

  Timothy L. Brownlee holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University, and a Bachelor of Humanities from Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio). His research focuses on German idealism, in particular the writings of G.W.F. Hegel, 19^th and 20^th century European philosophy, and social and political philosophy. He has published a number of articles on German idealism and political philosophy. He is currently at work on a book on the role of recognition in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.

• Gabe Gottlieb

  Dr. Gabriel Gottlieb is an associate professor of philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. His research interests include German Idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel), social and political philosophy, and philosophy of action. He is the editor of Fichte’s ‘Foundations of Natural Right’: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press: Forthcoming). He teaches courses on ethics, social and political philosophy, and 19th Century German Philosophy.

Event Schedule

Tuesday, 6:00-8:00pm
October 23, 2018

$0.00

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