Date/Time
Date(s) - 19/03/2025
10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Location
LRW 3001

Political Science | Winter 2025 RIPS Seminar Series
Research in Progress Seminar hosted by the Department of Political Science presents:

Arendt’s “Rich and Strange” Method for Political Thought

DATE:        Wednesday, March 19^th, 2025
TIME:         10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST
WHERE:     LRW 3001

This seminar welcomes Dr. Catherine Frost, Professor, and Lingyu Jing, PhD student, in the Department of Political Science.

Hannah Arendt believed that by recovering what has become “rich and strange” to contemporary eyes a thinker can renew their capacity for fresh insights. By reclaiming what has been neglected until it disappeared into the background of political life, or centering what seems unthinkable to address, we change the possibilities for thought in constructive ways. Because it takes an illustrative rather than traditionally comparative approach, this method avoids the urge to standardize what should be received on its own terms, and the technique proves especially powerful when thinking bogs down in dogma. Arendt’s method is also especially well-suited to studying a dogma-prone discipline like law. The question of Martian colonies and their status under international law, for instance, shows how the right “strange” case can prompt fresh thinking on internationalism. A dogma-prone concept – state sovereignty – is similarly illuminated by returning to the sheer oddity of how kingship was conducted. The conscious embrace of the peculiar case is therefore a rewarding method for political theory.

Catherine Frost is Professor of Political Science at McMaster University. Her expertise is in normative and legal theory, sovereignty and authority, voice and recognition, minority, and national identity, and Arendtian theory. Her books include Morality and Nationalism (Routledge, 2006) and Language, Democracy and the Paradox of Constituent Power (Routledge, 2021). Before entering academia, she served as a policy advisor in the Ontario government and a communications advisor in the private sector.

Lingyu Jing is a PhD candidate for political science at McMaster University. He specializes in political theory and international relations. His research focuses on state personhood, sovereignty, political theology, the intersection of religion and politics, sacrifice and martyrdom.

All are welcome to attend. No registration required.