The Scholar & Feminist 2012: Theorizing Vulnerability Studies

[audio:https://bcrw.barnard.edu/podcasts-bcrw/2012/SF-2012-Theorizing-Vulnerability-Studies.mp3|titles=Theorizing Vulnerability Studies]

How does a shift from focusing on the “autonomous and independent subject” to a framework of shared vulnerability transform intellectual, legal, and activist terrains? This interdisciplinary panel explores how our ideas of personhood, the state, politics, organizing, religion, consciousness, arts, and ethics change when vulnerability becomes the lens through which we examine them, focusing particularly on relationships of interdependence and structural inequality. Panelists include Martha Albertson Fineman, Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, Colin Dayan, and Ilaria Vanni. This discussion, moderated by Elizabeth Castelli, took place at The Scholar and Feminist Conference 2012, Vulnerability: The Human and the Humanities.

Listen using the player above or visit us on iTunes to download and subscribe to BCRW’s podcasts.

More from this event:

The Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) engages our communities through programming, projects, and publications that advance intersectional social justice feminist analyses and generate steps toward social transformation. BCRW is a center for research under the auspices of the AAUP Principles of Academic Freedom and, thus, nothing published on this website reflects the views of Barnard College as an institution.

© 2025 Barnard Center for Research on Women | Milstein Center, 6th Floor | 40 Claremont Avenue | New York, NY 10027