Workshop 'Mastery, Ownership, Divinity: Self and Power in Transregional and Transtemporal Perspectives', 18.-19.09.2018

Organized by Milinda Banerjee as Part of the Event Series ‘Global Intellectual History as Part of the Event Series ‘Global Intellectual History as Political and Ethical Critique’

Abstract

The field of global intellectual history has increasingly demonstrated how concepts of power are constructed through transregional and transtemporal processes, which need to be understood beyond area studies lenses. This conference intersects these discussions with allied fields like political economy, anthropology, and critical theory. Hence, our focus on a specific triangle: the relation between notions and practices of mastery and models of ownership and property, with varied forms of political theology moulding this nexus. We ask as to how these relations can be comprehended across the planetary scale in which social forces can be seen to operate, with ever greater intensity, today. Simultaneously, how do we acknowledge subalternized (along race, class, gender, and so on) actors, categories, and modes of resistance to lordship as originary in transfiguring political theory? Going beyond granular historicization, we further investigate how, through dialectical engagement, we can make past arguments transtemporally productive of revolutionary ethical futures with resolutely global valence.