The Scholar and Feminist 2012: Theorizing Vulnerability Studies

How does a shift from focusing on the 'autonomous and independent subject' to a framework of shared vulnerability transform intellectual, legal, and activist terrains? This interdisciplinary panel explores how our ideas of personhood, the state, politics, organizing, religion, consciousness, arts, and ethics change when vulnerability becomes the lens through which we examine them, focusing particularly on relationships of interdependence and structural inequality. Panelists include Martha Albertson Fineman, Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, Colin Dayan, and Ilaria Vanni. This discussion, moderated by Elizabeth Castelli, took place at The Scholar and Feminist Conference 2012, Vulnerability: The Human and the Humanities.