Baldy Center: Guest Lecture by Nick Cheesman

[Baldy Center]

The Baldy Center Guest Speaker Nick Cheesman (Australian National University) will present "A Political Concept Of Torture."

December 9th, 2022
Reception 12pm, lecture 12:30pm
509 O’Brian Hall
All are welcome, in person or online.
Zoom registration: https://buffalo.zoom.us/meeting/registe ... KAI68QLTCPt

ABSTRACT: What is torture? My answer to the question, as it currently stands, is that in torture torment addressing an outward purpose is delivered pedagogically on a person dominated totally in the name of public authority. In this paper, I concentrate on three traits that inhere to this concept, and that give it political qualities: its pedagogy of torment; its outwardly expressed purposes; and, how torturers totally dominate captives by group work. I juxtapose them with traits found in other concepts of torture that have informed my own thinking, namely, torture’s epistemology of pain; its apparent purposefulness; and, the absolute powerlessness of the person tortured. I conclude by considering the question of whether tortured people are dehumanized or merely rendered human through the degradation of torture, shifting attention from the traits of the concept to look toward its limits.

To learn more about Guest Speaker Nick Cheesman, visit our website, https://calendar.buffalo.edu/event/the ... -cheesman/