Stockholm Colloquium in Philosophy: Christopher Lee Kutz (Berkeley Law)

Jazz not Math: Education and Incarceration

Föreläsning

Datum:

torsdag 18 september 2025

Tid:

15.00 – 16.30

Plats:

D289

Abstract

Professor Kutz will discuss his new book, Publics in Action (Oxford, 2025).  The book makes the claim that we should center liberal-democratic political philosophy around the idea of an "active public." This means understanding the public as the agent and not the passive beneficiary of state action.  

The book elaborates a metaphor of active publics as a kind of improvisatory music ensemble, responding to traditional patterns and taking cues from an embracing audience, while ringing changes on those standards.  

It does so through an innovative method of combining abstract philosophical argument with detailed case studies of the publics, and public institutions in liberal democracies around the world.  

In this talk, I'll look at two different case studies: public education and public safety.  I will argue that we can understand the successes and failures of different models (in the US, France, and Scandinavia) by how active the imagined "publics" behind these institutions can be.