Questions of Identity: Vincent Descombes (University of Chicago & School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris), Alan Montefiore (University of Oxford & FEP)

Questions of Identity

Thursday 11 December, 6.30-8pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Vincent Descombes, Visiting Professor of French Literature, University of Chicago and Director of Studies, School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris

Alan Montefiore, Emeritus Fellow, Balliol College, University of Oxford and President of the Forum for European Philosophy

Chair: Danielle Sands, Lecturer in Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

What does it mean to speak of an individual’s very identity as a person? And what too of the ongoing identity of an institution or a group? And how is the sense of ‘identity’ as that which is identical related to ‘that which defines what and who we are’? Vincent Descombes will discuss some of the multiple complexities in what he has called Les embarras de l’identité.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEidentity