Dartmouth Events

The very idea of humanity seems to be in crises. Everywhere under siege, this conceptual
figure, born out of the ashes of devastation and the slaughter of millions, now appears less and
less capable of galvanising the political imagination. But how are we to understand humanity’s
pain? Was the concept already condemned the moment it appeared in the political
imagination? What does it mean for us to behold the suffering associated with its name? How
are we to deal with the continuous burdens of our shared forced witnessing to violent events,
which seemingly overwhelm our political and philosophical registers? And how are we to
develop more ethically astute aesthetical practices, without becoming parasitic to the intimate
portraits of the pain of others, which, at best points to banalisation, and at worse reduces them
to yet another spectacle of violence?

Co-sponsored with Society of Fellows