Breaking Vows: An Irreverent Conversation around Monogamy, Celibacy, Chastity, and Marriage.
Lead by
Lisabeth During
Professor of Social Sciences & Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute.

Saturday, April 13, 2013 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (EDT)
Hotel Particulier.
6 Grand Street
Address Line 2
New York, NY 10013

Marriage is the topic of the hour, gay or straight it seems to be getting good press almost everywhere. Hotel Particulier invites you to an irreverent conversation with Lisabeth During and Scot Nakagawa, to think together and talk about making and breaking vows, and about the implications of the fight for same-sex marriage.
In correlation with our dossier: Yes I do (k)not.

Lisabeth During teaches philosophy and film theory at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. She studied theology at Cambridge and is completing a book called 'The Chastity Plot: Studies in an Ascetic Ideal'. Marriage (along with chastity and virginity) has been on her mind for a number of years.

Scot Nakagawa is a senior partner at ChangeLab, a grassroots political lab that explores structural solutions to achieve racial justice. His current blog, Race Files, addresses race and racism in U.S. politics and culture. An unusual entry, expressing his position on same-sex marriage, recently shook the debate around marriage equality.

Saturday April 13, 2013
3pm-5pm
Limited capacity
Ticket $12, includes coffee or tea; petits fours, tax and gratuity.
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/yes-i-do-knot-breaking-vows-an-irreverent-conversation-around-marriage-tickets-6047852289?aff=eivtefrnd

Video from the Social Science and Cultural Studies Speaker Series event: Nona Sheppard in conversation with Gregg Horowitz, held on February 28, 2013.  Sheppard's lively discussion is wide-ranging, from an overview of her own career to the staging of Greek tragedy, accents and performance of Shakespeare, differences between American and British acting, and the power of words to convey the image, and of the image to convey the words.

http://archive.org/details/NonaSheppardGreggHorowitzEdit2282013

On February 28, 2013, The Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies was pleased to welcome Nona Sheppard, Associate Director and Creative Director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA),for a conversation with Prof. Gregg Horowitz, Chair of the Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies, and the audience. Nona Sheppard and Gregg Horowitz are introduced by Professor Traci Morris of the Department of Humanities and Media Studies

http://archive.org/details/NonaSheppardGreggHorowitzEdit2282013

"RAPE AND THE REPUBLIC" 

The story of Lucretia is well known. She was the virtuous wife of a Roman nobleman who committed suicide after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the king. Her body was displayed in the forum and the enraged citizens, led by Junius Brutus, expelled the Tarquins and established the Roman Republic. Slightly less well known is the story of Virginia. Fifty or so years after the rape of Lucretia, Claudius Appius, a patrician with tyrannical ambitions, attempted to enslave the daughter of a respected plebeian in order to have his way with her. When all seemed lost, her father seized a butcher’s knife and killed her -- to ‘make her free,’ as Machiavelli had it. After Virginia’s body was displayed in the forum, the citizens and the army forced Claudius Appius into exile, and the republican order was restored.

What do these stories tell us? What is it about rape that demands a political response? Why is republican rule established – and then re-established – through the death and display of a woman? Do these stories tell us something, not merely about republican forms of political order, but about the nature of sovereignty as such? In addressing these questions, we will consider, not merely the canonical account of Livy, but also the interpretations of later writers, especially St. Augustine, Machiavelli, and Lessing.

We will also consider, though more briefly, whether these ancient stories have anything to say to contemporary liberals anxious to keep the state out of their bedrooms, or to fathers ready to murder daughters in the name of honor.