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Hello, The following event may be of interest to you: The Play of Conspiracy in Plato’s Republic Monday, September 23, 2019 Does Plato’s Republic enact a conspiracy? Ostensibly, the impetus for imagining a political regime radically different from the democracy of the discussion is a desire to illustrate a concept (justice), not to overthrow a real political order. On second glance, the Republic takes place during the Peloponnesian War, when conspiratorial zeal consumed Athens. Fears of secret power and political instability erupt into and shape the stylistics of the narrative, provoking doubt about what the dialogue claims it is doing and proposing. Whether we are made privy to a conversation about a political world that may never exist or exposed to a strategy for discussing revolution undetected remains unresolved. The Republic invites a hermeneutics of suspicion, drawing us into a democratic culture of mistrust and the seductions of conspiratorial thinking. As it tropes conspiracy, the Republic provides a searching, immanent, and still-relevant critique of a democracy undergoing what we might today call authoritarian drift. Time: 4:45 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Location: Olin Humanities, Room 102 Sponsor: Classical Studies Program; Philosophy Program Contact: Jay Elliott. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 845-758-7280 If you would like to see more events please visit the following URL: http://www.bard.edu/academics/programs/physics/events/