The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

GPIA presents

Subjectivity and Resistance in Guantanamo:

Lacanian Ontologies of Subject and Law for International Relations

a talk by Andreja Zevnik

moderated by Prof. L.H.M Ling

 

Wedneday, October 1st

6 - 8 p.m.

Wollman Hall

65 W 11th St., Fifth Floor

 

The War on Terror has significantly influenced the role of law in international and national realms. This talk will focus on the ‘contingent character' of law and in particular the ‘construction of subjectivity' in the U.S. detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In Guatanamo, the United States government has used various techniques to "construct the subjectivity" of detainees, yet detainees have resisted official namings and their desired outcome in a variety of ways. Indeed, it can be argued that Guantanamo detainees embody a specific type of ‘being' that no longer belongs to sovereign discourse and does not constitute a ‘subject'. The existence of these different types of ‘being' has important implications for the way we perceive legality/law, the political and the study (philosophy) of International Relations.

 

Andreja Zevnik is a teaching fellow and PhD student at Aberystwyth University, United Kingdom. Her research interests are in contemporary French philosophy, and in particular Lacanian theory and its application for the study of International Relations, studies of the political that go beyond the notions of sovereignty and ‘subject', international law and critical legal studies, human rights and laws of war.