Richard Iveson/ Danielle Sands

6.30-8pm  |  Tuesday 11 February 2014
Wolfson Theatre

Richard Iveson, Research Fellow, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland

Chair: Danielle Sands, Visiting Lecturer, Department of English, QMUL and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

How important are animals to the constitution of democracy? In constructing his famous Republic, Plato expressly warns of the dangerous link between the liberation of animals, the uprising of the proletariat, and the founding of democracy. Unwittingly, Plato alsoreveals that an increased ‘sensitivity’ towards the fate of bonded animals marks an essential first step towards a truly free society. From this starting point, Richard Iveson considered whether the egalitarian entanglement of humans and other animals in fact constitutes the prior condition of any democratic community.