“Autographic Praxis and Infrapolitics”

Maddalena Cerrato, Assistant Professor | International Affairs

Abstract:

This co-authored text is part of a broader project concerned with the challenges of thinking the meaning of human existence in times marked by the planetary climate-environmental crisis and the triumph of global computation and Artificial Intelligence.

The article is an experiment in autographic writing that addresses the question of the role of autography in infrapolitics, thereby clarifying the stakes of autography as a praxis, without turning to a methodological discussion—whether theoretical or prescriptive. It engages critically with the traditional modes of academic praxis and explores an alternative, interactive way of writing as the necessary complement to a novel approach to existential thinking concerned with the possibility of freedom – that is, infrapolitics. By using different yet not distinct voices, this writing experiment aims to foreground the trans-autographic connection at stake in autography as a necessary condition of thinking.

 

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”Legal Activism in Heirs’ Property Law Reform: A Legal Rhetorical Paradigm for Social Change”

Valentina Aduen, Ph.D. Candidate | Communication & Journalism

Abstract:

In this article, Valentina Aduen explores the movement of public discourse into the law, focusing on the transformative qualities of law that are grounded on public narratives and grassroots movements. Aduen studies the movement of personal and community narratives by legal scholars and activists into the law. Aduen traces how a personal feeling of dispossession is recognized in property owners and mobilized into a collective voice that transforms a personal problem into a public problem through the mediation of stories in the public sphere. Two aspects of heirs property reform stand out in this study: 1) the history of racism that has both directly influenced the law and distorted its implementation, resulting in institutional structures that disadvantage specific populations, specially Black communities, and 2) the rhetorical problem of how we get individuals to feel that they have a voice and can talk back to and engage with their problems, focusing particularly on the agency of Black landowners and legal activists as they seek to both change and work within institutional structures. In short, Aduen does a historical revision of property law and brings theoretical resources, like critical race theory (CRT) and a discourse theory of law, to account for what the problem is grounded in all these dimensions.

 

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The Colloquium Series offers Glasscock Center Fellows an opportunity to discuss a work-in-progress with faculty and graduate students from different disciplines. By long-standing practice, colloquium presenters provide a draft of their current research, which is made available to members of the Glasscock Center listserv. Each colloquium begins with the presenter’s short (10-15 minute) exposition of the project, after which the floor is open for comments and queries. The format is by design informal, conversational, and interdisciplinary.

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