February 28, 2019
Professor Lisa Guenther
"The Living Death of Solitary Confinement and the Power of Collective Resistance"
Professor Guenther suggests that the testimony of prisoners in solitary confinement shows that prolonged isolation has a profound effect on their sense of time, space, and identity, to the point of making some people feel like a ghost in their own lives. She asks what this testimony suggests about the relational structure of personhood. Also she inquires about what philosophers can learn from grassroots activists who contest and transform the living death of isolation through collective acts of resistance. Finally, she suggests that Frantz Fanon’s account of radio broadcasting during the Algerian War offers a model of collective resistance through listening, interpreting, and creating a new “voice,” which deepens our understanding of philosophy as a collective social practice.
