In Culturele veldslagen, Gijs van Oenen examines the philosophical and historical backgrounds of the so-called culture wars, in which cultural propositions are questioned and challenged with an appeal to identity, self-understanding and social opposites. On the occasion of the publication of his new book, the philosopher discusses the interplay between belief, identity and social justice and how it takes shape on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum.
In his new book Culturele veldslagen, Gijs van Oenen describes how the so-called culture wars stem, on the one hand, from innovative ideas within Marxism about the importance of culture, and, on the other, from radical insights from French philosophy about language, madness and sexuality. These insights, from Derrida and Foucault in particular, have had profound implications for our thinking and acting on issues such as multiculturalism, ethnicity, black awareness, post-colonialism, gender, sexuality and heteronormativity over the past half century.
About the speakers
Gijs van Oenen is associate professor of philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He previously published Overspannen democratie (2018). He is also one of the authors of the philosophy method Durf te denken!
Karin Amatmoekrim is a writer and woman of letters. She has published six novels, a collection of short stories and numerous essays. Amatmoekrim is a correspondent on Verzwegen Geschiedenis at De Correspondent and a regular columnist for NRC Handelsblad. Currently, she is working on the great history of Suriname and completing her book In wat voor land leef ik eignelijk, the biography of Anil Ramdas for which she hopes to obtain a PhD at Leiden University in February 2023.
Ronald van Raak is professor of Erasmian values at Erasmus University. He researches the return of the values debate in the public domain, especially at universities. He is also a columnist and reviewer. From 2006 to 2021, Van Raak was a member of the House of Representatives, for the SP. His recently published book Stel een daad. Een kleine geschiedenis van de SP 1972-1999 (2021) and Denken op de dijken. Het Nederland van de filosofen (2020).
Tamar de Waal (moderator) is a philosopher of law, associate professor and director of the Amsterdam Honours College of Law at the Amsterdam Law School (University of Amsterdam). She is also president of Stichting Civic and a columnist for De Groene Amsterdammer. Her book Integration Requirements for Immigrants in Europe was published in June 2021 (Hart Publishing, Bloomsbury). For her dissertation Conditional Belonging (2017), she won the 2019 biennial VWR Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in philosophy of law in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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For the video recording, see Spui25.