The Politics of the Veil

An exciting week for the Marcus Orr Center (Dr. Judaken's NPR interview with Joan Scott and a reading group discussion of her book "The Politics of the Veil") culminated with Dr. Joan Scott's lecture on the 2004 French ban on conspicuous religious clothing in public schools. This discussion of the French state's methods of dealing with it's colonial past and it's diverse present and future was extremely interesting, not least because of Dr. Scott's grasp of the issue and her insight into the various sociological elements at play. The lecture drew a large and diverse crowd, including a Swedish gender-studies student at UofM who mentioned having read Dr. Scott throughout her academic career and was delighted to have had the opportunity to meet her. Dr. Scott concluded with a very poised and open question and answer session that further illustrated how well she understood the topic of ethnic and gender discrimination as it applied to France and even as it applied to Western society more generally.

Lewis Gordon and the Fanon Commemoration

Old Man Winter once again interfered with our plans at MOCH in coordinating the Fanon event with Dr. Gordon. Of course, the University was closed that Thursday because of the abrupt snowstorm that dumped several inches of snow on us. Needless to say, we were anxious about how many people would attend the event when it was rescheduled for Friday. Dr. Gordon was already scheduled to give the introduction to the Mid-South Philosophy Conference that weekend, so he graciously decided to extend and merge his talk to include some points on Fanon.

And the event went well! There were around 80 or so in attendance! We were all delighted by Dr. Gordon's talk. In his opening remarks, he cited the (then developing) situation in Egypt as "a textbook example of Fanon's theory". His brief introduction of Fanon's life and works set a lively and intellectual tone for the conference and our event. We are most grateful that things worked out so well!

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