Join us for a thought-provoking lecture presented by Robyn Marasco, professor and author, Thursday, April 9 at 4:30 p.m., King 306.
Synopsis:
What should feminists do with good ideas from bad men? What can we say about a Marxist philosopher who innovated the theory of ideology to include patriarchy, a Marxist philosopher who also strangled and killed his wife in their Paris home? This lecture provides a reconsideration of Althusser’s infamous theory of ideology in light of killing that pushed him out of public life in France. Robyn Marasco argues that feminists need Althusser’s concept of ideology now more than ever, not merely to make sense of this case and one man's crime, but to theorize the intimate relationship between the family and the state.
Robyn Marasco is the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science at The New School for Social Research. She is the author of The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory After Hegel, which reconstructs the emancipatory project of critical theory around the idea of negative dialectics, as well as several articles in leading social science and humanities journals. Her forthcoming book, Elements of a Political Theory of the Family, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2026.
Sponsored by the JD Lewis Memorial Lectureship; Politics Department; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and the Sociology Department
Open to all members of the Oberlin campus community
