Freedom

"Disciplinary Fault Lines" -The 2010-11 IHR Faculty Seminar Series focuses on what it means to do disciplinary and inter-/transdisciplinary work in the Humanities. At the core of the series is the issue of disciplinary fault lines—areas within disciplinary frameworks that point to the perceived limits of that discipline. How do we know when we’ve reached the limits of an idea, or have exhausted all avenues of inquiry from within a disciplinary frame? How do disciplines look differently at the same topic or question? When do we know when the reach of the disciplinary no longer holds promise, and when inter- or transdisciplinary cross-pollination will bear fruit? These are the questions posed of the participants in the series, asking them to investigate points in their own work (on questions of freedom, the queer, and representation) where disciplinary fault lines create bridges to other disciplinary approaches, and help foster cross-disciplinary understanding.

Peter de Marneffe, Professor, Philosophy, School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies

“Philosophy, Liberty, Polygamy” - The discipline of philosophy can justify us in accepting general principles of liberty, such as that the government should never limit individual liberty for insufficient reason. Philosophy on its own, however, cannot tell us whether there is sufficient reason for the government to limit a specific liberty in a specific way, because this depends partly on empirical facts, facts that we learn through history, psychology, sociology, economics, and other disciplines. Philosophers who want to know whether the government is justified in limiting a particular liberty must therefore travel outside of philosophy and consult other disciplines. Peter de Marneffe will illustrate this point by discussing the philosophical justification of legal regulations of polygamy in the American southwest.

Carolyn Warner, Professor, Political Science, School of Government, Politics, and Global Studies

“Islam, Religious Freedom, and European Politics” - Democracies tend to compel organized religions to act as interest groups in order to obtain resources and legal permission for the exercise of specific practices of their religions. One area in which this is clear is the coordination efforts among Muslim groups to obtain permission for Islamic burial rites at public cemeteries and the establishment of full-service community mosques in Europe. These actions could be construed as efforts to exercise a right to religious freedom, yet some of these efforts run into laws established a century or more ago precisely to protect individual freedoms from religious and group oppression and discrimination.

How can we understand this turn? How does religion affect organizational activity among religious groups? In particular, how does it affect collective action among Muslim groups in Europe? Do the factors which have been argued to affect collective action dynamics of Christians and Jews affect Muslims? While these questions are rooted in the interests of a political scientist in political conflict, in organized groups and their interactions with the state, answers have to be informed by research in a variety of fields, even while the scholar works from a particular disciplinary interests.