Freedom, Emancipation, and Political Representation: New Work in Philosophy and Political Theory

Thursday, April 30 - Friday, May 1, 2026
Class of 1930 Room (Rockefeller 106)

Sponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities, the Ethics Institute, and the Philosophy Department

Description: This interdisciplinary conference on freedom, emancipation, and political representation features five invited sessions by leading scholars who have written recent books addressing ethical and political questions about resistance, nonviolence, abolition, emancipation, and political representation. Each of these public talks investigates the ethical nature of politics and political philosophy, with an emphasis on individuals’ roles in promoting a just and equitable society. This event is a two-day conference showcasing newly published books in political philosophy and political theory, with talks from leading invited scholars and Dartmouth faculty from philosophy, religion, world languages, literature, and culture, and political science, and government departments. There will be five panels, each with one speaker and one commentator, and a final roundtable. The event is open to the entire Dartmouth community, but space is limited and registration is required. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 30
9:30am: Welcome
10:30am - 11:45am: Meena Krishnamurthy (Queens University), The Emotions of Nonviolence: Revisiting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ with comments from Laure Barillas (UNH)
11:45am - 1:15pm: Lunch (Paganucci Lounge, Class of 1953 Commons)
1:30pm - 2:45pm: William Paris (University of Toronto), Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation, with comments from Jerome Clarke (American University)
3:00pm - 4:15pm: Wendy Salkin (Stanford University), Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation, with comments from Susan Brison (Dartmouth)
4:15pm - 5:00pm: Break
5 - 6:30 pm: Book Party at Still North Books

FRIDAY, MAY 1
10:30am - 11:45am: Erin Pineda (Smith College), Seeing Like an Activist: Civil Disobedience and the Civil Rights Movement, with comments from Yarran Hominh (Bard College)
11:45am - 1:15pm: Lunch (Paganucci Lounge, Class of 1953 Commons)
1:30pm - 2:45pm: Philip Yaure (Virginia Tech), Seizing Citizenship: Frederick Douglass's Abolitionist Republicanism, with comments from Keidrick Roy (Dartmouth)
3:00pm - 4:15pm: Roundtable on “The Question of Audience and Public-Facing Social and Political Work” with Darien Pollock (BU), Owen Glyn-Williams (Suffolk University), and Samia Hesni (Dartmouth)