The Institute for Critical Social Inquiry will open part of its programming to the public – a series of lectures taught by this Summer's faculty cohort of Lewis Gordon (University of Connecticut) , Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University), Bernard Harcourt (Columbia University) and Homi Bhabha (Harvard University).

Bernard Harcourt's lecture is entitled "Life, Death, and Juridical Power."

The state of Alabama began executing the condemned by means of nitrogen gas asphyxiation in January 2023, after a long history of botched and failed executions. In the modern death penalty era, Alabama alone accounts for more than half of executions in which the condemned person survives the torturous ordeal. That has not stopped the state, though, from meting out the final punishment, or even forging new methods of execution. And it has not inspired a single federal court to intervene. How should we think about the state’s exercise of juridical power in the contemporary era—after the age of discipline and rehabilitation, of sovereign displays of public torment, of, perhaps even, biopower? I have been representing men on death row in Alabama for over three decades now and still do not have complete answers. But I will propose timely reflections in this public lecture.

Bernard E. Harcourt is a multi-disciplinary critical scholar and legal advocate, and teaches at Columbia University and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. His most recent books, Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory (2023) and Critique & Praxis: A Critical Philosophy of Illusions, Values, and Action (2020) attempt to reconstruct critical philosophy as a transformative political praxis. He has edited lectures and writings by Michel Foucault in French and English. Harcourt began his career representing men on Alabama’s death row. In 2019, he was awarded the New York City Bar Association’s lifetime achievement award for his work on behalf of individuals on death row.

Register for other ICSI lectures here:

June 9, 5 PM: Lewis Gordon

June 10, 5 PM: Rashid Khalidi

June 13, 5 PM: Homi Bhabha

About the Institute:
The Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) is designed to provide advanced graduate students and junior faculty from around the world with the opportunity to spend one week at the New School’s campus in Greenwich Village working closely with some of the most distinguished thinkers shaping the course of contemporary social inquiry. Each of these scholars will teach a week-long seminar on a foundational thinker or topic of contemporary concern in a series of hands-on, intensive, and intimate sessions.