Philosophy MAP Lecture: Rebecca Harrison

The Department of Philosophy is pleased to welcome Rebecca E. Harrison (Binghamton University). Harrison will deliver a talk to the Syracuse Chapter of Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) entitled, “Another World is Possible: Disruptive Protests as Transformative Experiences.”

Abstract: How does participating in disruptive forms of protest change the way we think about what is possible? Oppressive ideologies present prevailing forms of social order as natural, inevitable, and unchangeable. In this talk, I’ll argue that disruptive protests are a crucial moral-epistemic tool for challenging oppressive ideologies. Participating in disruptive protests, I’ll argue, can provide members of oppressed and exploited groups with a morally and epistemically transformative “experiential break” (Haslanger 2017, Paul 2014) through which they can come to recognize the extent of their own power and agency. Drawing on the 1936 Flint sit-down strike as a case study, I suggest that the Flint strikers’ experiences of self-organization, egalitarian decision-making procedures, and the temporary reversal of pre-existing power arrangements are features of disruptive protests which, under the right conditions, can generate epistemically and morally transformative insights into how things could be.