Jacksonville, AL –On the 1st of March, on a Friday between 5:30 pm and 7:00 pm from 5:30pm to 7:00 pm, the Tocqueville Lecture Series and JSU present the Tocqueville Lecture Series Talk Seizing the concept of citizenship Frederick Douglass’s Abolitionist Republicanism. To register for this event, visit http://bit.ly/TLSYaure. This year, the Tocqueville Lecture Series pleased to welcome Professor Dr. Philip Yaure (Virginia Tech). His lecture, “Frederick Douglass’s Abolitionist Republicanism” examines three notions of what constitutes an American citizen. He claims it is because Frederick Douglass understands citizenship in republican traditions that include the fight against slavery within the American context. The virtual event is held by an Zoom Webinar. You will receive a hyperlink upon registering at http://bit.ly/TLSYaure.
Abstract What is it that means to be an American citizen? We often think of the term citizenship in terms of a legally binding right which is granted to people by the state. We often think of citizenship as a sense of identitybeing an American citizen means to have an identity that is based on a particular nationality. In this presentation I will explore a third approach to thinking about citizenship, one that is found in the political tradition that is republican. In this republican conception of citizenship, they are individuals who are a part of a society through their participation in its political activities. I argue that during the period that preceded the Civil War, Black American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass uses this republican notion of citizenship as a contribution to create a truly inclusive vision of a political unity. The enslaved and legally liberated Black Americans, Douglass argues in the 1850s, are American citizens who the state should recognize for their citizenship, as they contribute to the country by demonstrating against slavery. Douglass’s theory of innovation seeks to redefine the notion of contribution. People contribute to the polity as citizens through ways that challenge and influence what the polity believes in. Opposition to racism and slavery with both great and quotidian ways shows that those who stand up to injustice are consideredas part in the society. These claims of normative significance embodied by antislavery protests are essentially the civic contributions of those who stand up as citizens. In this sense Douglass’ republican concept of citizenship can be described as abolitionist. An inclusive polity can be created through resistance to oppressive ideologies and institutions as resistance itself expands borders of an exclusive political system.
Description: Philip Yaure is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Virginia Tech, where he is an expert in the field of political and social philosophy as well as the history of African American political thought. His work has been published in Ethics, American Political Thought, Philosophical Studies, New Political Science and The Civil War Book Review. Phil is especially interested in issues related to the nature of the political community and citizenship. He examines the ways Black American political thinkers theorize these notions during the period of the antebellum. This presentation draws upon information from his book project, which asserts that Frederick Douglass has made an important contribution to the development of republican political thought through fundamentally reimagining the meaning and meaning of American citizenship.
