March 14: Philosophy Lecture by Visiting Professor

Thursday, March 14, 2019
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Morris Hall, Room 103

Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Department of Philosophy welcomes students, faculty and other members of the University community to attend an upcoming lecture by Jillian Locke titled “The Politics of Shame and the Stories We Tell: Narratives of loss and hope from Sophocles and Plato to Slut Walks and #MeToo” Thursday, March 14 at 4 p.m. in Morris Hall, Room 103. Refreshments will be served.

The following lecture preview was provided by the Department of Philosophy:

Talk about shame and shamelessness permeates contemporary politics as citizens and politicians grasp for ways to describe what ails this particular time. In this talk, Locke identifies two dominant styles of “shame talk” in politics – the “lament that shame is dead,” which imagines a past time and place in which shame easily regulated collective life – and the “shaming fantasy,” which hopes that public shamings will trigger moral awakenings in their targets. As tempting as these approaches may be, Locke argues there is scant evidence that shame has historically done this regulative work or that shaming is an effective political strategy for changing hearts and minds.

Locke is professor of political science and the director of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Program at Gustavus Adolphus College. Her recent book, “Democracy and the Death of Shame: Political Equality and Social Disturbance,” was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

For more information about the lecture, contact Joshua Preiss, associate professor of philosophy at Minnesota State Mankato, at 507-389-5514, or visit the philosophy department website.