Conference report on Shklar Symposium

Jointly funded by Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and University College Dublin, organized by Samantha Ashenden (Politics, Birkbeck) and Andreas Hess (Sociology, UCD) and held at Birkbeck College on 29th October 2016 

This one-day symposium brought together a nucleus of people with the purpose of presenting papers for a planned volume, ‘A political companion to the work of Judith N. Shklar’ (with Penn Press). In this endeavor they were joined by scholars and postgraduate students from Birkbeck and elsewhere. The day began with presentations from Bernard Yack (Brandeis University) and Tracy Strong (Southampton) on Shklar’s use of literary sources. The ensuing discussion was followed by Kamila Stullerova’s (IR, Aberystwyth) paper about Shklar’s notion of realism, which led to a lively exchange about the role of ideas in international politics and relations. Philip Spencer’s (Politics, BIrkbeck) paper about the applicability of Shklar’s idea of ‘putting cruelty first’ and how it contributes to our understanding of the crime of genocide was equally well received. The afternoon saw two more presentations, one by Samantha Ashenden (Politics, Birkbeck) about political obligation and its links to our understanding of law, and one by Andreas Hess (Sociology, UCD) about the notions of civil disobedience in Shklar’s late lectures on political obligation.

Participants agreed that the day provided for an excellent conversation, with diverse papers demonstrating several overlapping themes that will deepen the planned collection. In short, the symposium contributed greatly to fostering dialogue between the contributors to the book. It really set the ball rolling for that project, and in addition it offered postgraduate students from politics, philosophy and psycho-social studies at Birkbeck and elsewhere a taste of political theory in action. Several participants commented that it was the best academic seminar they had participated in for a long while.