Wednesday 22 May 2013

Seminar: Chika Mba on 'Fanon's Cultural Humanism and the Challenge of Global Justice'

The weekly Critical Studies Seminar Series, which is held jointly by the departments of Sociology and Political Studies, is presenting the following seminar: 

Topic: Fanon's Cultural Humanism and the Challenge of Global Justice 

Presenter: Chika Mba (African Humanities Programme Post-Doctoral Fellow attached to the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities at Rhodes University)

Venue: Politics Seminar Room
Date & Time: Friday May 24th from 1 pm to 2:30 pm

Abstract:


The problem of justice is an old one in philosophy. It received attention
from the most adept minds in the history of the discipline.  
This includes the likes of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas
Aquinas, Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. Indeed, the problem of justice has
been the concern of all known human cultures, civilizations and societies in
every epoch. It could be said that the problem of how to maintain a just
social arrangement almost always arises whenever there is more than one
person. It would also seem that many of these philosopher-theorists of
justice were concerned (at different degrees) with how their conception of
justice would apply to other societies and possibly affect the world as a
whole.

        However, the question of global justice or the problem of developing
principles of justice that would apply to the world as a whole and
universally is relatively new in political theory. At all events, it has
risen to become what some consider the most important discourse in
Contemporary Political Philosophy. Two factors account for the rise in
prominence. The first is as a result of the theoretical trajectory of
political philosophy since the publication of John Rawls' very influential
book, A Theory of Justice in 1971. The second reason is globalization; or
the growing interdependence of all human societies as a result of
advancements in technology.

        This work is an attempt to make a contribution to the evolving
discourse on global justice by bringing to the fore the significant impact
culture and conceptions of culture and humanity could have in determining
what an acceptable theory of global justice would look like. Overall, the
essay probes the possibility of an ethics of inter-culturality that would at
the same time provide a firm foundation for a theory of global justice.
A copy of the paper can be accessed at:
http://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/politics/documents/May24criticalstudieseminarpaper.doc