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The Political Philosophy Reading Group

The Political Philosophy Reading Group (PPRG) meets roughly every two weeks in at least the Fall and Winter semesters to discuss new and working papers in political, legal and moral philosophy with the papers’ authors. Papers are circulated in advance of the discussion. All faculty and graduate students are welcome to attend. For more information, please contact Christine Sypnowich. See below for the PPRG’s schedule.

Winter 2023

  • Jan 16: Rowan Bell (Missouri) -- "Much Ado ֱ Nothing: Deflating Gender Identity"
  • Jan 20: Colin Macleod (Victoria) -- "Diagnosing the ‘Burdens’ of The Rich Egalitarian: How Capitalism Nurtures Pleonexia"
  • Feb 6: Michael Luoma (Queen’s) and Margaret Moore (Queen’s) -- "Historic Territorial Injustices"
  • Feb 27: Andrew Lister (Queen’s) -- "Reciprocity as Duty"
  • Mar 27: Owen Clifton (Queen’s)
  • Apr 11: Suzanne Bloks (Hamburg)

Fall 2022

  • Sept 6: Kerah Gordon-Solmon (Queen’s) -- "When Saving More is Worse Than Saving None"
  • Sept 27: Avigail Eisenberg (Victoria) -- "The Radical Democratic Theory of Mary Parker Follett"
  • Oct 4: Christine Straehle (Hamburg) -- "Between justice and differentiated rights – Migrant workers, Relational Equality and the Welfare State"
  • Oct 25: Arthur Hill (Queen’s) -- "A Contextual Approach to Political Legitimacy"
  • Nov 8: Jeff Edwards (Stonebrook) -- "Kant’s Concept of Right and Egalitarian Justice"
  • Nov 22: Paul Morrow (Dayton) -- "Ethical Seeing"

Winter 2022

  • Jan 20: Avia Pasternak (UCL) -- "The Proportionality Test and Harm to State Officers"
  • Feb 3: Kerah Gordon-Solmon (Queen’s) -- "Between All and Nothing: Or, Defending the Impermissible"
  • Mar 3: David Miller (Oxford) -- "Compensation for Historic Injustice"
  • Mar 17: Dalitso Ruwe (Queen’s) -- "Black Minds Matter"
  • Mar 31: Christine Sypnowich (ֱ) -- "Rescuing Existing Value – For or Against Socialist Community?"

Fall 2021

  • Sept 14: Colin Farrelly (Queen’s) -- "The Classics in Political Philosophy, For Today"
  • Sept 28: Omar Bachour (Queen’s) -- "Four Proposals for a Post-work Society"
  • Oct 26: Hillel Steiner (Manchester) -- "Is the right to bequeath a supernatural power?"
  • Nov 23: Agnes Tam (McGill) -- "Solidarity in social movements: A we-perspective"
  • Dec 7: Poulomi Chakrabarti (Queen’s/Harvard) -- "Status and Development: How Social Hierarchy Undermines Public Goods Provision"

Summer 2021

  • May 17: Harry Brighouse (Wisconsin) – “What’s wrong with tuition-free public higher education?”
  • May 31: Jordan MacKenzie (Virginia Tech) – “Survivor Guilt”
  • Jun 21: Anca Gheaus (Central European University) – “State neutrality and the dismantling of the gendered division of labour”
  • Jul 12: Paula Casal (Pompeu Fabra) – “Duties to future generations of humans and all other living creatures”
  • Jul 26: Joe Heath (Toronto) – “When does Critical Theory become conspiracy theory?”
  • Aug 9: Mara Marin (Victoria) – “What does it mean for action to be structural?”

Winter 2021

  • Jan 18: Igor Shoikhedbrod (Toronto) – “G.A. Cohen, the Neglected Value of Democratic Self-Management, and the Future of Democratic Socialism”
  • Feb 1: Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (Queen’s) – “Public Spaces and Public Things: Doing democracy with animals”
  • Feb 22: Alistair Macleod (Queen’s) – "The Concept of Opportunity and the Ideal of Equality of Educational Opportunity"
  • Mar 8: Margaret Moore (Queen’s) – "Limits and Loss of Territorial Rights: biodiversity, climate justice and territorial rights-forfeiture"
  • Mar 22: Adam Schipper (Queen’s)
  • Apr 5: Tom Parr (Warwick) – “Against Credentialism”
  • Apr 19: Patti Lenard (Ottawa) – “When accessing citizenship requires a handshake: On the permissibility of denying religious/cultural accommodations to citizenship oath-takers”

The Political Philosophy Reading Group: Upcoming

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