Inequality Seminar: Responsibility and Ignorance: On Dismantling Structural Injustice

The Inequality Seminar is a seminar and speaker series that provides a forum on campus for faculty and graduate students who are interested in inequality broadly defined.  It is an opportunity for faculty and graduate students to present their research and to hear about other inequality-related work from researchers on and off-campus.

This seminar will tackle the thorny question of how to dismantle structural racial injustice. It engages Iris Marion Young’s work on responsibility for structural justice, and also draws on Charles Mills’s work on what Mills calls white epistemologies of ignorance to challenge Young’s emphasis on changing how racially privileged people understand their responsibilities. It makes the case that disruptive politics play a crucial role in dismantling structural injustice. Because they interrupt privileged people’s motivated ignorance, disruptive politics create a political opening to institutionalize structural change.

Clarissa Rile Hayward is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching focus on questions central to understanding and evaluating political life: "What is social power, and how does it shape human freedom?" "What does democratic government entail, and what are its practical and institutional implications?" "How do social actors create and maintain identities?" Unlike theorists who attempt to answer such questions by relying exclusively on what Rawls called "ideal theory," Hayward approaches these problems by examining their concrete manifestations, writing theoretical work that is grounded in the analysis of institutions and practices. The result is an engaged form of political theory, addressed not only to other specialists in the field, but more generally to social and political theorists, social scientists, and others who are concerned with questions of power, democracy, and identity.

The Inequality Seminar meets Thursdays from 12:00-1:30 p.m., in W113 Seashore Hall.  The schedule of talks can be found here.

If you have any questions about the Inequality Seminar, please contact Sarah Bruch at sarah-bruch@uiowa.edu.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation, in order to participate in this program, please contact the Department of Sociology in advance at 335-2502.