Presented By: Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies
WCED Roundtable. Democracy and the Authorization of Violence
Christian Davenport, Orlando de Guzman, Ann Heffernan, Murad Idris, Anand Patwardhan
This lecture will be presented in person in 1010 Weiser Hall and on Zoom. Webinar registration required at: http://myumi.ch/n8mdx
Supposedly an alternative to violence, democracy often authorizes violence. Rioters convinced of their electoral win storm a parliament; elected governments boasting a popular mandate attack vulnerable minorities or rival countries; insurgents shed blood to overthrow homegrown tyrants and foreign occupiers in freedom’s name. This roundtable gathers five diverse experts and practitioners to consider the logics and limits of democracy’s linkages to violence, in America and abroad.
Christian Davenport is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Professor of the Study of Human Understanding and professor of political science at the University of Michigan as well as a faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies and research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Primary research interests include political conflict (e.g., human rights violations, genocide/politicide, torture, political surveillance, civil war and social movements); measurement; racism; and popular culture. He is the author of six books, most recently The Peace Continuum with Erik Melander and Patrick Regan (2017, Oxford University Press). He is the recipient of numerous grants (e.g., 10 from the National Science Foundation) and awards (e.g., the Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar Award and a Residential Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences – Stanford University).
Orlando de Guzman is a video journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared in The New York Times and on ITVS/Independent Lens, Vice News, Al Jazeera and Univision. He is a 2022-23 Knight-Wallace Fellow at U-M. As a camera operator, he has worked in the Central African Republic, Brazil, Venezuela, Nagorno-Karabakh and dozens of other countries and disputed territories. At Vice News, de Guzman won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award for his unflinching look at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, including the now-iconic images he captured of torch-bearing white supremacists chanting racist slogans. Prior to television, de Guzman was a radio journalist covering Southeast Asia and the second Iraq war for WGBH and the BBC’s “The World” magazine show. He holds a B.A. in international studies from the University of Washington.
Ann Heffernan is an LSA Collegiate Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Her research and teaching interests include contemporary political theory, disability studies, feminist theory, and American political development. Her current book project, “Disability: A Democratic Dilemma,” brings into view the significance of disability in mediating the relationship between citizens and the American state. Drawing upon historical and contemporary examples—among them the rise of waged labor, the Flint, Michigan water crisis, the healthcare debate, and, most recently, the proposed expansion of public charge requirements in U.S. immigration law—she shows how the boundaries and defining features of political membership are stabilized and recast in and through disability.
Murad Idris is associate professor of political science at U-M. He has wide-ranging interests in political theory and the history of political thought, including war and peace, critical theory, conceptual history, anticolonial and postcolonial thought, political theology, international political theory, comparative political theory, and Arabic and Islamic political thought. His book, War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought (2019), won the David Easton Award from APSA, and the International Ethics Best Book Award from ISA, and the Best Book in Interdisciplinary Studies Award also from ISA. He is currently writing "Islam under Modernity: Genealogies of Definition, Reform, and Jihad," which analyzes the dominant scripts about Islam in modernity—“Islam is peace,” “Islam means submission,” “Islam needs a Luther,” “Muslims need to embrace a spiritual jihad”—and it uses them as a launchpad for examining modern assumptions about freedom, progress, and violence.
Anand Patwardhan, India’s foremost documentary filmmaker, is a Hughes Fellow this fall at U-M. Patwardhan is known for his sociopolitical, award-winning films. He has spent decades capturing Mumbai’s slum-dwellers, the reality of the caste system, the rise of Hindu nationalism, and tensions between India and Pakistan. Though his films have won many international and publicly funded awards, he has had to fight the Indian government’s censorship and restrictions with almost every one of his films. Patwardhan was born in Mumbai. He completed a B.A. in English literature at Elphinstone College in Mumbai, a B.A. in sociology at Brandeis University, and a M.A. in communication studies at McGill University in Montreal. He also is a member of the Oscar Academy.
Moderated by Dan Slater, WCED director.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact weisercenter@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Supposedly an alternative to violence, democracy often authorizes violence. Rioters convinced of their electoral win storm a parliament; elected governments boasting a popular mandate attack vulnerable minorities or rival countries; insurgents shed blood to overthrow homegrown tyrants and foreign occupiers in freedom’s name. This roundtable gathers five diverse experts and practitioners to consider the logics and limits of democracy’s linkages to violence, in America and abroad.
Christian Davenport is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Professor of the Study of Human Understanding and professor of political science at the University of Michigan as well as a faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies and research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Primary research interests include political conflict (e.g., human rights violations, genocide/politicide, torture, political surveillance, civil war and social movements); measurement; racism; and popular culture. He is the author of six books, most recently The Peace Continuum with Erik Melander and Patrick Regan (2017, Oxford University Press). He is the recipient of numerous grants (e.g., 10 from the National Science Foundation) and awards (e.g., the Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar Award and a Residential Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences – Stanford University).
Orlando de Guzman is a video journalist and filmmaker whose work has appeared in The New York Times and on ITVS/Independent Lens, Vice News, Al Jazeera and Univision. He is a 2022-23 Knight-Wallace Fellow at U-M. As a camera operator, he has worked in the Central African Republic, Brazil, Venezuela, Nagorno-Karabakh and dozens of other countries and disputed territories. At Vice News, de Guzman won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award for his unflinching look at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, including the now-iconic images he captured of torch-bearing white supremacists chanting racist slogans. Prior to television, de Guzman was a radio journalist covering Southeast Asia and the second Iraq war for WGBH and the BBC’s “The World” magazine show. He holds a B.A. in international studies from the University of Washington.
Ann Heffernan is an LSA Collegiate Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Her research and teaching interests include contemporary political theory, disability studies, feminist theory, and American political development. Her current book project, “Disability: A Democratic Dilemma,” brings into view the significance of disability in mediating the relationship between citizens and the American state. Drawing upon historical and contemporary examples—among them the rise of waged labor, the Flint, Michigan water crisis, the healthcare debate, and, most recently, the proposed expansion of public charge requirements in U.S. immigration law—she shows how the boundaries and defining features of political membership are stabilized and recast in and through disability.
Murad Idris is associate professor of political science at U-M. He has wide-ranging interests in political theory and the history of political thought, including war and peace, critical theory, conceptual history, anticolonial and postcolonial thought, political theology, international political theory, comparative political theory, and Arabic and Islamic political thought. His book, War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought (2019), won the David Easton Award from APSA, and the International Ethics Best Book Award from ISA, and the Best Book in Interdisciplinary Studies Award also from ISA. He is currently writing "Islam under Modernity: Genealogies of Definition, Reform, and Jihad," which analyzes the dominant scripts about Islam in modernity—“Islam is peace,” “Islam means submission,” “Islam needs a Luther,” “Muslims need to embrace a spiritual jihad”—and it uses them as a launchpad for examining modern assumptions about freedom, progress, and violence.
Anand Patwardhan, India’s foremost documentary filmmaker, is a Hughes Fellow this fall at U-M. Patwardhan is known for his sociopolitical, award-winning films. He has spent decades capturing Mumbai’s slum-dwellers, the reality of the caste system, the rise of Hindu nationalism, and tensions between India and Pakistan. Though his films have won many international and publicly funded awards, he has had to fight the Indian government’s censorship and restrictions with almost every one of his films. Patwardhan was born in Mumbai. He completed a B.A. in English literature at Elphinstone College in Mumbai, a B.A. in sociology at Brandeis University, and a M.A. in communication studies at McGill University in Montreal. He also is a member of the Oscar Academy.
Moderated by Dan Slater, WCED director.
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact weisercenter@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
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