Céline Spector: Charles Taylor Lecture Series in Political Thought 2023

Céline Spector (Paris – Sorbonne)

Sunday 2 April

19h00 – Interview with Spector about the course of her career (in French)

Librairie Le Port de tête

Monday 3 April

16h-18h – Lecture I : « Les illusions du souverainisme »

Can the objection that democracy finds its privileged – even unique – expression within nation-states be overcome? Can we respond to the philosophers and political scientists who maintain that the nation is the sine qua non of democracy, the only possible place for the exercise of political rights, the breeding ground for liberty, equality, and fraternity? This lecture proposes to refute the illusions of sovereigntism, by defending the possibility of a post-national democracy. (In French)

Pavillon MIL (690A), A-4502.1

18h-19h – Reception, Atrium, Pavillon MIL (690B)

Université de Montréal, 1375 avenue Thérèse-Lavoie-Roux, Montréal, H2V 0B3.

Tuesday 4 April

16-18h – Lecture II : « Une République fédérative pour l’Europe? L’héritage des Lumières »

This lecture intends to show that the theories of the federative republic elaborated in The Spirit of the Laws and transformed by Madison and Hamilton shed light on the political future of the European Union. To envisage a theory of free and just institutions, without yielding to Kantian tropism, requires us to detect, in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, theories of the free association of republics that do not opt for cosmopolitanism. The investigation will thus contribute to justify, in a non-dogmatic way, a federative Republic in Europe. (In French)

Pavillon Athanase-David D-R200, Université du Québec à Montréal, 1430 rue Saint-Denis, Montréal, H2X 3J8.