Jo Shaw on "Horizons of Freedom: The Paradoxes of Citizenship in the Pandemic"

The Open Society University Network and the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University in Belgrade invite all OSUN members to attend an online lecture by Jo Shaw on "Horizons of Freedom: The Paradoxes of Citizenship in the Pandemic." 

Shaw, who holds the Salvesen Chair of European Institutions at the University of Edinburgh, will explore how the meaning of certain social acts has been shifting under pandemic conditions, allowing us to gain new insights into the character of constitutional citizenship and its relationship with political ideas such as populism and fundamental principles such as equality and dignity. The focal points of the lecture are face-coverings and masks, alongside public protests against restrictions on liberties imposed in the name of combating the spread of the virus.

These shifts in social acts illustrate the changing meaning of what constitutes the “good citizen," playing on what Jean Cohen terms “the paradoxical dialectic inherent in modern constitutionalism,” which “drives republican or liberal democratic conceptions of citizenship into the arms of thicker, more communitarian understandings of identity.” This, then, raises the question of whether it is feasible and reasonable to place a brake upon such trends, and to ask which types of norms and institutions, at the national and international levels, are suitable for that task.

The annual seminar 2020/21 “Horizons of Freedom” events at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, examine the intrinsic connection between freedom and engagement in order to expand the conceptual and political horizons of freedom as a central principle guiding action in democratic politics, and initiates a more intensive dialogue among antagonistic traditions of academic perception of freedom in the face of urgent challenges and threats to freedom and democracy.

Join via Zoom.
Link to the IFDT site.

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For more information, call 845-758-6822.

Time: 8:00 am – 10:00 am EST/GMT-5

Location: Online Event

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