Amy Allen is Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests are in twentieth-century Continental philosophy, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of critical social theory, poststructuralism, and feminist theory. Her current research project focuses on the relationship between psychoanalysis and critical theory. She is the author of The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia University Press, 2016); The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (Columbia University Press, 2008); and The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity (Westview, 1999). Her recent publications include “Psychoanalysis and the Methodology of Critique,” Constellations 23, no. 2 (2016): 244–54; “History, Critique, and Freedom: The Historical A Priori in Husserl and Foucault,” with Andreea Smaranda Aldea, Continental Philosophy Review 49, no. 1 (2016): 1–11; “Progress, Philosophical and Otherwise,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy (SPEP Supplement) 28, no. 3 (2015): 265–82; and “Are We Driven? Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis Reconsidered,” Critical Horizons 16, no. 4 (2015), 311–28.
Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University. She specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental social and political thought, feminist theory, and the history of modern political theory. Her recent research focuses on issues relating to refugees, exile, asylum, citizenship, cultural conflict, multiculturalism, and nationality. She is the author of Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times (Polity, 2011); Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with Hannah Arendt (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations (Oxford University Press, 2006); The Rights of Others: Aliens, Citizens and Residents (Cambridge University Press, 2004); The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Princeton University Press, 2002); The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Sage, 1996); Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (Routledge, 1994), with Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell, and Nancy Fraser; Feminism as Critique (Polity, 1986), with Drucilla Cornell; Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Polity, 1992); and Critique, Norm and Utopia: A Study of the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia University Press, 1986). Her recent publications include “The New Legitimation Crises of Arab States and Turkey,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 40, no. 4–5 (May 2014): 349–58; and “Transnational Legal Sites and Democracy-Building: Reconfiguring Political Geographies,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 39, no. 4–5 (May 2013): 471–86.
Wendy Brown is the Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the history of political theory, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental theory, critical theory, and theories of contemporary capitalism. She is the author of Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (Zone, 2015); Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (Zone, 2010); Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Empire and Identity (Princeton University Press, 2006); Edgework: Essays on Knowledge and Politics (Princeton University Press, 2005); Politics Out of History (Princeton University Press, 2001); States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton University Press, 1995); and Manhood and Politics: A Feminist Reading in Political Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 1988). She is coauthor of The Power of Tolerance: A Debate (Columbia University Press, 2014), with Rainer Forst; and Is Critique Secular? Injury, Blasphemy and Free Speech (University of California Press, 2009), with Judith Butler, Saba Mahmood, and Talal Asad; and is coeditor of Left Legalism/Left Critique (Duke University Press, 2002), with Janet Halley. Her recent publications include “Sacrificial Citizenship: Neoliberalism, Human Capital, and Austerity Politics,” Constellations 23, no. 1 (2016): 3–14; and “Marxism for Tomorrow,” Dissent 62, no. 4 (2015): 91–94.
Penelope Deutscher is the Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Her current research focuses on the intersections of biopolitics, reproductive futurism, and the genealogy of gendered rights claims. She is the author of Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason (Columbia University Press, forthcoming); The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2008); How to Read Derrida (Granta, 2005); A Politics of Impossible Difference: The Later Work of Luce Irigaray (Cornell University Press, 2002); and Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philosophy (Routledge, 1997). Her coedited volumes include Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Deconstruction, Genealogy, and Politics (Columbia University Press, 2016), with Olivia Custer and Sam Haddad; and Repenser le politique: l’apport du feminisme (Campagne première, 2004), with Françoise Collina. Her recent publications include “ ‘On the Whole We Don’t’: Michel Foucault, Veena Das and Sexual Violence,” Critical Horizons 17, no. 2 (2016): 186–206; “ ‘Foucault for Psychoanalysis’: Monique David-Menard’s Kind of Blue,” Philosophia 5, no. 1 (2015): 111–27; “Fraternal Politics and Maternal Auto-Immunity: Derrida, Feminism, and Ethnocentrism,” in A Companion to Derrida, ed. Zeynep Direk and Leonard Lawlor (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 362–77; and “The Membrane and the Diaphragm: Derrida and Esposito on Immunity, Community, and Birth,” Angelaki 18, no. 3 (2013): 49–68.
Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. He is Co-Director of the Excellence Cluster on “The Formation of Normative Orders” and of the Center for Advanced Studies, “Justitia Amplificata.” He is also Director of the Leibniz Research Group, “Transnational Justice,” and Member of the Directorate of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Bad Homburg. His research focuses on questions of practical reason and the foundation of morality as well as on basic concepts of normative political theory, especially justice, toleration, and democracy. He is the author of Justification and Critique (Polity, 2013); Toleration in Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Right to Justification (Columbia University Press, 2012); and Contexts of Justice (University of California Press, 2002). He is coauthor of The Power of Tolerance: A Debate (Columbia University Press, 2014), with Wendy Brown; and Justice, Democracy and the Right to Justification: Rainer Forst in Dialogue (Bloomsbury, 2014). His recent publications include “Noumenal Power,” Journal of Political Philosophy 23, no. 2 (2015): 111–27; and “A Critical Theory of Politics: Grounds, Method, and Aims,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 41, no. 3 (2015): 225–34.
Nancy Fraser is the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science at The New School for Social Research. Her research focuses on social and political theory, feminist theory, and contemporary French and German thought. She is the author of Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (Verso, 2013); Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (Columbia University Press, 2008); Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (Verso, 2003), with Axel Honneth; Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition (Routledge, 1997); and Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 1989). She is coeditor of Pragmatism, Critique, Judgment: Essays for Richard J. Bernstein (MIT Press, 2004), with Seyla Benhabib; and Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency, and Culture (Indiana University Press, 1992), with Sandra Bartky. Her recent publications include “Legitimation Crisis? On the Political Contradictions of Financialized Capitalism,” Critical Historical Studies 2, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 157–89; “Can Society Be Commodities All the Way Down?” Economy and Society 43, no. 4 (2014): 541–58; and “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere: On the Legitimacy and Efficacy of Public Opinion in a Post-Westphalian World,” in Transnationalizing the Public Sphere, ed. Kate Nash (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), 8–42.
Jürgen Habermas is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is one of the most influential living philosophers in the world. His work addresses topics stretching from social-political theory to legal theory, aesthetics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Lure of Technocracy (Polity, 2015); The Crisis of the European Union: A Response (Polity, 2012); Europe: The Faltering Project (Polity, 2009); Between Naturalism and Religion (Polity, 2008); Truth and Justification (MIT Press, 2003); The Postnational Constellation (MIT Press, 2001); The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (MIT Press, 1998); Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (MIT Press, 1996); Justification and Application (MIT Press, 1993); Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (MIT Press, 1990); The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (MIT Press, 1987); and The Theory of Communicative Action (Beacon, 1987). He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Kluge Prize (2015), the Erasmus Prize (2013), the Holberg Prize (2005), the Kyoto Prize (2004), the Prince of Asturias Award (2003), and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2001).
Rahel Jaeggi is Professor of Practical Philosophy with emphasis on Social Philosophy and Political Philosophy at the Humboldt University, Berlin. Her research focuses on social, legal, and political philosophy, philosophical ethics, anthropology, and social ontology. She is the author of Kritik von Lebensformen (Suhrkamp, 2014; English translation forthcoming); Alienation (Columbia University Press, 2014); and Welt und Person: Zum anthropologischen Hintergrund der Gesellschaftskritik Hannah Arendts (Lukas Verlag, 1997). Her coedited volumes include Karl Marx: Perspektiven der Gesellschaftskritik (Akademieverlag, 2013), with Daniel Loick; Nach Marx: Philosophie, Kritik, Praxis (Suhrkamp, 2013), with Daniel Loick; and Sozialphilosophie und Kritik (Suhrkamp, 2009), with Rainer Forst, Martin Hartmann, and Martin Saar. Her recent publications include “Alienation, Exploitation, Dysfunction: Three Paths of the Critique of Capitalism,” Southern Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming); “Towards an Immanent Critique of Forms of Life,” Raisons Politiques 57 (2015): 13–29; and “Philosophy as Criticism,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 63, no. 3 (2015): 569–76.
Cristina Lafont is the Wender-Lewis Research and Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Her current research focuses on issues in contemporary political philosophy such as deliberative democracy, human rights and global governance, and religion and politics. She is the author of Global Governance and Human Rights (Spinoza Lecture Series) (van Gorcum, 2012); Heidegger, Language, and World-Disclosure (Cambridge University Press, 2000); and The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy (MIT Press, 1999). She is coeditor of the Habermas Handbuch (Metzler Verlag, 2012). Her recent publications include “Should We Take the Human out of Human Rights? Human Rights and Human Dignity in a Corporate World,” Ethics & International Affairs 30, no. 2 (2016): 233–52; “Deliberation, Participation and Democratic Legitimacy,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 23, no. 1 (2015): 40–63; “Religious Pluralism in a Deliberative Democracy,” in Secular or Post-Secular Democracies in Europe? The Challenge of Religious Pluralism in the 21st Century, ed. Ferran Requejo and Camil Ungureanu (London: Routledge, 2015), 46–60; and “Accountability and Global Governance: Challenging the State-Centric Conception of Human Rights,” in Ethics & Global Politics 3, no. 3 (2010): 193–215.
Christoph Menke is Professor of Philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on political and legal theory, theories of subjectivity, ethics, and aesthetics. He is author of Kritik der Rechte (Suhrkamp, 2015; English translation forthcoming); Force: A Fundamental Concept of Aesthetic Anthropology (Fordham University Press, 2012); Recht und Gewalt (August Verlag, 2011); Tragic Play: Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett (Columbia University Press, 2009); Reflections of Equality (Stanford University Press, 2006); The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida (MIT Press, 1999); and Tragödie im Sittlichen: Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit nach Hegel (Suhrkamp, 1996). His recent coedited volumes include Kreation und Depression: Freiheit im gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2012), with Juliane Rebentisch; Paradoxien der Autonomie (August Verlag, 2011), with Thomas Khurana; and Der Mensch als Person und Rechtsperson: Grundlage der Freiheit (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2011), with Eckart Klein. His recent publications include “Back to Hannah Arendt: The Refugees and the Crisis of Human Rights,” Merkur 70 (July 2016): 49–58; “The Possibility of the Standards: About a Practice Beyond Morality and Causality,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 64, no. 2 (2016): 299–306; and “At the Brink of Law: Hannah Arendt’s Revision of the Judgment on Eichmann,” Social Research 81, no. 3 (2014): 585–611.
Charles W. Mills is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His work in recent years has looked at the challenge of theorizing race, racism, and racial justice within a liberal framework, with a particular focus on the adequacy (or lack thereof) of Rawlsianism. He is the author of Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming); The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997); Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998); From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); Contract and Domination (Polity, 2007), with Carole Pateman; and Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality: Race, Class and Social Domination (University of the West Indies Press, 2010). His recent publications include “White Time: The Chronic Injustice of Ideal Theory,” Du Bois Review 11, no. 1 (2014): 27–42; “Kant and Race, Redux,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35, no. 1–2 (2014): 125–57; “Decolonizing Western Political Philosophy,” New Political Science 37, no. 1 (2015): 1–24; and “Racial Equality,” in The Equal Society: Essays on Equality in Theory and Practice, ed. George Hull (London: Lexington, 2015), 43–71.