Benjamin P. Davis, Author at Public Seminar

Sentencing the Present

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

May 7, 2020 • by Jonathon Catlin, Andrew Cole, Benjamin P. Davis, Bonnie Honig, Joy James, Mark Kingwell, Vincent Lloyd, Sarah Schulman, Dara Z. Strolovitch and Enzo Traverso

In light of Marx’s 1843 conception of critical thought, how does your perspective contribute to “the self-clarification of the struggles and wishes of the age”? In a time of social breakdown and uncertainty, we find that critique comes almost too easily. Hence we also take inspiration from the historian E. ...

In a world shifting more quickly than we can consider, analysis is more important than ever

Catastrophe is not “to come,” but here and now. Before the current pandemic, our way of life was already killing life on earth. State selections of who shall live and who shall die already produced medical shortages. “That things are ‘status quo’ is the catastrophe. It is not an ever-present possibility ...