The History of Consciousness department is delighted to present Progress and Regression with Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt University of Berlin)

This talk is part of the HISC Winter 2024 Speaker Series. Guests are invited to join us in-person in HUM 1, Room 420 at 2:00 pm PST, or join virtually via Zoom. We look forward to seeing you there!

About Progress and Regression

My paper deals with a question which has repeatedly preoccupied contemporary philosophical discussion and which seems to me to be indispensable for a critical theory of society in the tradition of left-Hegelian critique in particular—namely, the question of progress and regression. So what does it mean to understand social change as a movement of progression, or, respectively, regression? How can the concept of progress help us to understand, as Wendy Brown says “where we have come from and where we are going”, if where we are trying to go is towards emancipation – or at least away from the multi-crisis we are currently in? And in which respect does it prevent us from understanding this? How can we (and can we?) distinguish regressive from progressive or emancipatory movements? Read more

About Rahel Jaeggi

Rahel Jaeggi is Professor of Philosophy with a focus on Political Philosophy at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Since 2018 she is also director of the University’s Centre for Social Critique. She has researched and taught as a visiting professor at Yale University, Fudan University, and as Theodor Heuss Professor at The New School for Social Research. Jaeggi was also a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is a prominent representative of critical theory, has received numerous awards, and is the author and co-editor of numerous books, including Alienation (2015), Critique of Forms of Life (Harvard University Press, 2018) and Fortschritt und Regression, which is about to be translated and will appear in English in 2025. She is currently a fellow at the Thomas Mann Haus in Los Angeles.